KERNEL SMOOTHED CONSUMPTION-AGE QUANTILES

In earlier work we explored life-cycle consumption profiles of Canadian married couple families. That research concluded that the common presumption in simulation models of upward-sloping consumption-age profiles accompanied by dissaving in retirement could not be supported in Canadian data. Here, we continue to explore the shape of the consumption-age profile by non-parametric techniques we have developed. These techniques allow us to estimate profiles in a manner that does not depend on assumptions about functional form. In particular, we estimate the median and other quantiles of the consumption distribution conditional on age. Broadly speaking, we confirm our earlier results.