At the origins of the life cycle hypothesis of Franco Modigliani and Richard Brumberg: an attempt at analysis

Abstract

This paper re-examines the origins of the Life-Cycle Hypothesis (LCH) originally formulated by Modigliani and Brumberg seventy years ago, using a combination of historical and archival analysis. The study compares Modigliani’s own account of the LCH with a range of other sources, including papers presented at the Conference on Savings in 1952, contemporary literature, and PhD dissertations of Hamburger and Brumberg. The analysis reveals that the idea of the LCH was somehow “in the air” in the early 1950s, although Modigliani-Brumberg’s formulation represents an ingenious theoretically-founded and empirically-testable formalisation of such a framework.

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