We study how within-store price variation changes with inflation, and whether households exploit it to attenuate the inflation burden. We use micro price data for food products sold by 91 large multi-channel retailers in ten countries between 2018 and 2024. Measuring unit prices within narrowly...

This paper examines the consumption response to monthly paycheck receipt. Since the amount and arrival date of paychecks are known in advance, the receipt of a paycheck does not coincide with the receipt of new information. Under the basic rational expectations Life-Cycle/Permanent Income...

U.S. Bank deposits by individuals grew from 4% of GDP at the time of the National Banking Acts in 1863-64 to 23% by the time of the Federal Reserve's founding. A comprehensive collection of bank- level data shows that most gains occurred immediately after the Acts, Specie Resumption in 1879, and...

We analyze the effect of a major central bank digital currency (CBDC) - the digital euro - on the payment industry to find remarkably heterogeneous effects. Stock prices of U.S. payment firms decrease, while stock prices of European payment firms increase in response to positive announcements on...

Many households hold little wealth, especially liquid wealth. In precautionary savings models, absent preference heterogeneity, these households should display not only higher marginal propensities to consume (MPCs), but also lower average propensities to consume (APCs) and higher future...

Conventional wisdom holds that illegal copies cannibalize legitimate sales, even though previous research has found mixed effects, with illegal copies acting as both a substitute and complement. Yet, a relatively unexamined aspect to date is the quality of illegal copies. Building on product...

We estimate the degree of 'stickiness' in aggregate consumption growth (sometimes interpreted as reflecting consumption habits) for thirteen advanced economies. We find that, after controlling for measurement error, consumption growth has a high degree of autocorrelation, with a stickiness...

This paper has two goals. First, we discuss several emerging approaches to applied welfare analysis under non-standard ("behavioral") assumptions concerning consumer choice. This provides a foundation for Behavioral Public Economics. Second, we illustrate applications of these approaches by...