Using a large, representative sample of high-frequency credit card transactions in the United States, this paper examines the causal effect of sunshine-induced mood on contemporaneous household credit card spending. We document a 0.3 percent increase in credit card spending in response to a...

This study assesses a new mechanism – the deposit channel – in the transmission of interest rate shock to household consumption using an administrative panel dataset of financial transactions for Turkey. Our empirical strategy exploits variation in consumer's adherence to the Muslim laws...

Using loan-level mortgage data merged with consumer credit records, we examine the ability of the government to impact mortgage refinancing activity and spur consumption by focusing on the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP). The policy relaxed housing equity constraints by extending...

We provide novel evidence that peer induced saliency bias acts as a mechanism to explain consumption peer effects. This bias occurs when consumers overweight the influence of a single, salient peer when assessing brand quality, and underweight more objective, aggregate quality data. We exploit...

Using proprietary loan-level data, we examine the ability of the government to impact mortgage refinancing activity and spur consumption by focusing on the Home Affordable Refinancing Program (HARP). The policy relaxed housing equity constraints by extending government credit guarantee on...

To incentivize households to increase private savings, the Indian government implemented in July 2014 a new tax-subsidized saving policy that largely incentivizes homeowners by allowing them to exempt an additional 50,000 INR ($833) of the mortgage principal and interest payments from taxable...

Using loan-level mortgage data merged with consumer credit records, we examine the ability of the government to impact mortgage refinancing activity and spur consumption by focusing on the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP). The policy relaxed housing equity constraints by extending...