Using a survey of households in the Nielsen Consumer Panel and the randomized timing of disbursement of the 2008 Economic Stimulus Payments, we find that a household's spending rose by ten percent the week it received a Payment and remained high cumulating to 1.5-3.8 percent of spending over...

In this paper, we revisit two pieces of conventional wisdom in the current debate about poverty, paying close attention to the price data underlying these findings: that the poor pay more than households of higher income for the goods and services they purchase; and that poverty rates, at least...

Few months after the onset of the crisis, the flight to safe assets at world level benefited the US treasuries, while the financial deleveraging favored the US dollar. Once the economic and market conditions return to normal, we will see a reversal of these trends (i.e., a weakened dollar and an...