We use responses to survey questions in the 2010 Italian Survey of Household Income and Wealth that ask consumers how much of an unexpected transitory income change they would consume. We find that the marginal propensity to consume (MPC) is 48 percent on average, and that there is substantial...

Is the observed large increase in consumer indebtedness since the 1980s beneficial for U.S. consumers? This paper quantitatively studies the macroeconomic and welfare implications of relaxing borrowing constraints when consumers exhibit a hyperbolic discounting preference. The model can capture...

This paper presents new survey evidence on workers' response to the 2011 payroll tax cuts. While workers intended to spend 10 to 18 percent of their tax-cut income, they reported actually spending 28 to 43 percent of the funds. This is higher than estimates from studies of recent tax cuts, and...

The empirical effectiveness of economic policies that operate theoretically through similar channels differs substantially. We document this fact by comparing an easy-to-grasp expectations-based policy, unconventional fiscal policy, with a policy whose implications are harder to understand by...

The Great Recession and the years that followed witnessed a dramatic expansion in the duration of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits available to unemployed workers in the United States. An important motivation for this policy was to stimulate demand by transferring funds to households that...

This paper examines the early effects of dismantling the one-child (fertility) policy, which China relaxed in 2013 and eliminated prior to 2017. Birth rates, female labor force participation, and saving behavior have already changed. Between 2015 and 2017, the proportion of households with...

Using micro-level data, we document a systematic, income-related component in household income forecast errors. We show that these errors can be formalized by a modest deviation from rational expectations, where agents overestimate the persistence of their income process. We then investigate the...

The empirical effectiveness of economic policies that operate theoretically through similar channels differs substantially. We document this fact by comparing an easy-to-grasp expectations-based policy, unconventional fiscal policy, with a policy whose implications are harder to understand by...

In this paper we develop a dynamic structural life-cycle model of labor supply behavior which fully accounts for the effect of income tax and transfers on labor supply incentives. Additionally, the model recognizes the demand side driven rationing risk that might prevent individuals from...

This paper models the macroeconomic and distributional consequences of lockdown shocks during the COVID-19 pandemic. The model features heterogeneous life-cycle households, labor market search and matching frictions, and multiple industries of employment. We calibrate the model to data from New...