. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2011 Jun 23.

Published in final edited form as: Rev Econ Dyn. 2008 Oct;11(4):761–780. doi: 10.1016/j.red.2008.01.003

Table 1.

Summary statistics for Consumer Expenditure Survey consumption data, 1982–2002.

Variable	mean	s.d.
quarterly consumption^a	4716	2991
log(quarterly consumption)^a	8.28	0.60
adjusted per capita consumption^a,^b	2431	1415
log(adjusted per capita consumption)^a,^b	7.66	0.51

Observations	124,348
Households	31,087
Quarters	250
Households observed per quarter:
mean	497
minimum	92
25th percentile	476
median	537
75th percentile	575
maximum	733

Data are on nondurable goods and services consumption. See appendix B for sample restrictions. Observations are one quarter’s consumption for one household. Households can enter the survey in any month, so there are observations for 12 different quarterly consumption periods each year.

Deflated by GDP deflator for personal consumption expenditures on nondurable goods; 2000 dollars.

Adjusted per capita consumption is total consumption divided by effective household size, defined as 1 for a one-person household, 2 for a two-person household, and 0.4 additional units for each person after the second.