Search Results
Working Paper
From Transactions Data to Economic Statistics: Constructing Real-time, High-frequency, Geographic Measures of Consumer Spending
Access to timely information on consumer spending is important to economic policymakers. The Census Bureau's monthly retail trade survey is a primary source for monitoring consumer spending nationally, but it is not well suited to study localized or short-lived economic shocks. Moreover, lags in the publication of the Census estimates and subsequent, sometimes large, revisions diminish its usefulness for real-time analysis. Expanding the Census survey to include higher frequencies and subnational detail would be costly and would add substantially to respondent burden. We take an alternative ...
Working Paper
Lifecycle Patterns of Saving and Wealth Accumulation
Empirical analysis of U.S. income, saving and wealth dynamics is constrained by a lack of high-quality and comprehensive household-level panel data. This paper uses a pseudo-panel approach, tracking types of agents by birth cohort and across time through a series of cross-section snapshots synthesized with macro aggregates. The key micro source data is the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), which captures the top of the wealth distribution by sampling from administrative records. The SCF has the detailed balance sheet components, incomes, and interfamily transfers needed to use both sides of ...
Working Paper
Distributional Considerations for Monetary Policy Strategy
We show that makeup strategies, such as average inflation targeting and price-level targeting, can be more effective than a flexible inflation targeting strategy in overcoming the obstacles created by the effective lower bound in a heterogeneous agent New Keynesian (HANK) model. We also show that the macroeconomic stabilization benefits from such alternative strategies can be substantially larger in a HANK environment than in a representative agent New Keynesian model. We argue that gains in employment outcomes from switching to an alternative strategy would generate disproportionate ...
Discussion Paper
A Not-So-Great Recovery in Consumption : What is Holding Back Household Spending?
Historically, aggregate consumption has closely tracked disposable personal income, government transfers, and household net wealth. In this note, we show that this empirical relationship has broken down in recent years and explore potential explanations for why consumers--at least in the aggregate--may not be spending in line with recent income and wealth gains.
Discussion Paper
Living at Home Ain't Such a Drag (on Spending): Young Adults' Spending In and Out of Their Parents' Home
In this Note, we quantify the net change in annual spending by a young adult who has just moved out of her parents' home.
Discussion Paper
How Does Intergenerational Wealth Transmission Affect Wealth Concentration?
In this note, we seek to establish the role of intergenerational wealth transmission by using the Federal Reserve Board's Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), which contains extensive information about household balance sheets, intergenerational transfers made and received, and demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of respondents.
Discussion Paper
Student Loan Debt and Aggregate Consumption Growth
Although student debt service is undoubtedly a source of severe financial strain for some individuals, in this discussion we show that the direct effect of increased student debt service on aggregate consumption growth is likely small.
Discussion Paper
The Effect of Hurricane Matthew on Consumer Spending
In this note, we take a step forward in this regard using a new dataset of transaction volumes to examine how consumers reacted to Hurricane Matthew, which struck the East Coast in October 2016.
Discussion Paper
The Effect of Sales-Tax Holidays on Consumer Spending
Over the past decade, many U.S. states have enacted policies that temporarily exempt consumer purchases of certain goods from state sales taxes. In this note, we investigate whether the pre-announced sales-tax holidays noticeably alter the spending behavior of consumers. Specifically, we investigate whether there are shifts in the level and/or composition of consumer spending before, during, and after these sales-tax holidays.
Discussion Paper
High-frequency Spending Responses to the Earned Income Tax Credit
Many households face large, high-frequency changes in income and have limited financial buffers to smooth their consumption through this income volatility. However, few studies have quantified spending responses to such timing shifts in income due to a lack of high-frequency spending data. We use a new dataset of anonymized daily, state-level spending to study a two-week delay in federal tax refunds with an earned income tax credit (EITC) in 2017.