During the Great Recession, the collapse of consumption across the U.S. varied greatly but systematically with house-price declines. We find that financial distress among U.S. households amplified the sensitivity of consumption to house-price shocks. We uncover two essential facts: (1) the...

In this paper we analyse whether the use of debit card payments data improves the accuracy of one-quarter ahead forecasts and nowcasts (current-quarter forecasts) of Dutch private household consumption. Since debit card payments data are timely available, they may be a valuable indicator of...

We use detailed information from U.S. consumers' credit card purchases to provide the first large scale description of the geography of consumption. We find that consumers' mobility is quite limited and document significant heterogeneity in the importance of gravity across sectors. We develop a...

The focus of this paper is on nowcasting and forecasting quarterly private consumption. The selection of real-time, monthly indicators focuses on standard (“hard”/“soft” indicators) and less-standard variables. Among the latter group we analyze: i) proxy indicators of economic and policy...