Robert E. Lucas, Jr. argued that the welfare gains from reducing aggregate consumption volatility are negligible. Subsequent work that revisited his calculation continued to find small welfare benefits, further reinforcing the perception that business cycles do not matter. This paper argues instead that fluctuations can affect welfare, by affecting the growth rate of consumption. I show that fluctuations can reduce growth starting from a given initial consumption, which can imply substantial welfare effects as Lucas himself observed. Empirical evidence suggests the welfare effects are likely to be substantial, about two orders of magnitude greater than Lucas' original estimates. (JEL D60, E32, E63, O40)
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机译：小罗伯特·E·卢卡斯（Robert E. Lucas，Jr.）认为，减少总消费波动所带来的福利收益微不足道。随后的工作重新审视了他的计算方法，继续寻找到微不足道的福利，进一步强化了人们对商业周期无关紧要的看法。相反，本文认为，波动可以通过影响消费的增长率来影响福利。我表明，波动可以从给定的初始消费开始减少增长，这可能暗示了卢卡斯本人所观察到的重大福利影响。经验证据表明，福利影响可能是巨大的，比卢卡斯最初的估计大两个数量级。 （JEL D60，E32，E63，O40）
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