How is a developing country affected by its government's ability to borrow in international markets? We examine the dynamics of a country's growth, consumption, and sovereign debt, assuming that the government's objective is to maximize short-term, typically wasteful, expenditures. Sovereign...

I use an electronic transfer mandate in the UK Child Benefit program, a transfer received by virtually all families with children, to estimate the effect of bank account ownership on the financial behavior of less educated families with children. With the mandate increasing account ownership by...

How do households adjust savings and consumption in response to liquidity from debt relief? I study this question using policy variation induced by federal student loan forbearance in the 2020 CARES Act and an individual-level panel of daily financial transactions for 315,000 borrowers....