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Working Paper
For Better and for Worse? Effects of Access to High-Cost Consumer Credit
Dobridge, Christine L. (2016-07)
I provide empirical evidence that the effect of high-cost credit access on household material well-being depends on if a household is experiencing temporary financial distress. Using detailed data on household consumption and location, as well as geographic variation in access to high cost payday loans over time, I find that payday credit access improves wellbeing for households in distress by helping them smooth consumption. In periods of temporary financial distress?after extreme weather events like hurricanes and blizzards?I find that payday loan access mitigates declines in spending on ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2016-056

Working Paper
The Welfare Costs of Business Cycles Unveiled: Measuring the Extent of Stabilization Policies
Barros, Fernando; Luduvice, Andre; Gomes, Fabio (2022-04-21)
How can we measure the welfare benefit of ongoing stabilization policies? We develop a methodology to calculate the welfare cost of business cycles taking into account that observed consumption is partially smoothed. We propose a decomposition that disentangles consumption in a mix of laissez-faire (absent policies) and riskless components. With a novel identification strategy, we estimate the span of stabilization power. Our results show that the welfare cost of total fluctuations is 11 percent of lifetime consumption, of which 82 percent is smoothed by the status quo policies, yielding a ...
Working Papers , Paper 21-14r

Briefing
Does Redistribution Increase Output?
Athreya, Kartik B.; Owens, Andrew; Romero, Jessica Sackett; Schwartzman, Felipe (2017-01)
According to conventional wisdom, wealth redistribution boosts output by increasing aggregate consumption. However, while redistributive policies can have a short-run stimulative effect on consumption, their effect on output depends, potentially quite importantly, on the nature of household labor supply.
Richmond Fed Economic Brief , Issue January

Working Paper
Lifecycle Patterns of Saving and Wealth Accumulation
Feiveson, Laura J.; Sabelhaus, John Edward (2019-02-15)
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 ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2019-010

Report
Business cycle fluctuations and the distribution of consumption
De Giorgi, Giacomo; Gambetti, Luca (2015-03-01)
This paper sheds new light on the interactions between business cycles and the consumption distribution. We use Consumer Expenditure Survey data and a factor model to characterize the cyclical dynamics of the consumption distribution. We first establish that our approach is able to closely match business cycle fluctuations of consumption from the National Account. We then study the responses of the consumption distribution to total factor productivity shocks and economic policy uncertainty shocks. Importantly, we find that the responses of the right tail of the consumption distribution, ...
Staff Reports , Paper 716

Working Paper
The Welfare Costs of Business Cycles Unveiled: Measuring the Extent of Stabilization Policies
Barros, Fernando; Luduvice, Andre; Gomes, Fabio (2021-07-30)
How can we measure the welfare benefit of ongoing stabilization? We develop a methodology to calculate the welfare cost of business cycles taking into account that observed consumption is partially smoothed. We propose a decomposition that disentangles consumption in a mix of laissez-faire (absent policies) and riskless components. With a novel identification strategy, we estimate the span of stabilization power. Our results show that the welfare cost of total fluctuations is 5.81 percent of lifetime consumption, in which 80 percent is smoothed by the status quo, yielding a residual 1.05 ...
Working Papers , Paper 21-14

Working Paper
The effects of changes in local-bank health on household consumption
Peek, Joe; Cooper, Daniel H. (2018-10-01)
Focusing on localized measures of bank health and economic activity, and renters as well as homeowners, this paper uses an innovative approach to identifying households likely in need of credit to investigate the effect on household spending of a deterioration in local-bank health. The analysis shows that local-bank health tends to impact the expenditures of renters more than homeowners, with the strongest effects for households that likely need credit?those experiencing a negative income shock and having limited liquid wealth. These findings contribute to the discussion of the linkages ...
Working Papers , Paper 18-5

Working Paper
Welfare and Spending Effects of Consumption Stimulus Policies
Carroll, Christopher D.; Tretvoll, Håkon; Crawley, Edmund (2023-01)
Using a heterogeneous agent model calibrated to match measured spending dynamics over four years following an income shock (Fagereng, Holm, and Natvik (2021)), we assess the effectiveness of three fiscal stimulus policies employed during recent recessions. Unemployment insurance (UI) extensions are the clear “bang for the buck” winner, especially when effectiveness is measured in utility terms. Stimulus checks are second best and have the advantage (over UI) of being scalable to any desired size. A temporary (two-year) cut in the rate of wage taxation is considerably less effective than ...
Finance and Economics Discussion Series , Paper 2023-002

Working Paper
The local aggregate effects of minimum wage increases
Parker, Jonathan A.; Cooper, Daniel H.; Luengo-Prado, Maria Jose (2017-08-01)
This paper examines the effect of minimum wage changes on local aggregate inflation and consumption growth. The paper utilizes variation in state-level minimum wages across locations and finds that minimum wage increases have a relatively modest effect on both city-level inflation and spending growth over the years following the change. The most noticeable effects are for food consumed at home and away from home?industries that typically employ a large share of low-wage and minimum-wage workers. Interestingly, consumers adjust their real food consumption when minimum wages rise, suggesting ...
Working Papers , Paper 17-8

Report
What would you do with $500? Spending responses to gains, losses, news, and loans
Kaplan, Greg; Fuster, Andreas; Zafar, Basit (2018-03-01)
We use survey questions about spending to investigate features of propensities to consume that are useful for distinguishing between consumption theories. Asking households about their intended spending under various scenarios, we find that 1) responses to unanticipated gains are vastly heterogeneous (either zero or substantially positive), 2) responses to losses are much larger and more widespread than responses to gains, and 3) even those with large responses to gains do not respond to news about future gains. These three findings suggest that limited access to disposable resources is an ...
Staff Reports , Paper 843

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