Dépenses de consommation, épargne et avoirs liquides

Abstract

Consumer spending, saving and liquid assets Many, frequently divergent, theoretical explanations have been presented of the influence of liquid assets on consumer spending and saving habits. The author sets out to test some of these theories against empirical evidence drawn from American experience. It is found that liquid assets are highly concentrated in all income groups and that this distribution does not change much over time. As a result, only a few persons compared with all consumer units, hold most liquid assets. This being the case, the effect on overall spending of liquid assets cannot be considerable. Because they are distributed in roughly the same way, the same argument may be applied to holdings of other types of financial assets. Going even further, it may be said that, net worth itself being highly concentrated, the same conclusion holds. The second empirical test concerns the cyclical influence of price changes, via liquid assets, on the consumption function. In the 1930's there does not appear to have been any marked shift in the consumption function. From 1947 to 1948 the change observed is best considered as a once-for-all effect. It would seem that the Korean years do not furnish much support for liquid asset theories either.