Congress spent $250B sending stimulus checks to individuals. Could the same stimulus have been achieved for less, assuming the government's information is restricted to 2019 tax returns? Using a life-cycle consumption-saving model with heterogeneous consumers, we calculate the consumption...

This paper derives a closed-form solution for optimally allocating resources among heterogeneous individuals subject to individual-specific allocation constraints assuming the planner has CES-preferences and returns to allocations are non-increasing. We derive the optimal allocation of stimulus...