Key macro indicators such as output, productivity, and inflation are based on a complex system across multiple statistical agencies using different samples and different levels of aggregation. The Census Bureau collects nominal sales, the Bureau of Labor Statistics collects prices, and the...

Having low liquidity and a high marginal propensity to consume (MPC) are tightly linked. This paper analyzes this linkage in the context of income tax withholding and refunds. A theory of rational cash management with income uncertainty endogenizes the relationship between illiquidity and the...

The Subjective ex ante Treatment Effect is the difference between the probabilities of an outcome conditional on a treatment. The SeaTE yields ex ante causal effects at the individual level. The paper gives an interpretation in two workhorse econometric frameworks: potential outcomes and dynamic...

Traditional methods of collecting data from businesses and households face increasing challenges. These include declining response rates to surveys, increasing costs to traditional modes of data collection, and the difficulty of keeping pace with rapid changes in the economy. The digitization of...

This paper jointly estimates the relationship between stock share and expectations and risk preferences. The survey allows individual-level, quantitative estimates of risk tolerance and of the perceived mean and variance of stock returns. These estimates have economically and statistically...

Recent fiscal policies, including the 2008 stimulus payments and the 2009 Making Work Pay tax credit, aimed to increase household spending. This paper quantifies the spending response to these policies and examines differences in spending by whether the stimulus was delivered as a one-time...

Only about one-fifth of respondents in the Reuters/University of Michigan survey report that the 2008 tax rebates led them to mostly increase spending, while over half said it would lead them to mostly pay off debt. Of those in the mostly-spend category, the response was swift, with over 80...

Survey measures of preference parameters provide a means for accounting for otherwise unobserved heterogeneity.This paper presents measures of relative risk tolerance based on responses to survey questions about hypothetical gambles over lifetime income.It discusses how to impute estimates of...

Only one-fifth of respondents to a rider on the University of Michigan Survey Research Center's Monthly Survey said that the 2008 tax rebates would lead them to mostly increase spending. Almost half said the rebate would mostly lead them to pay off debt, while about a third saying it would lead...

Labor supply is unresponsive to permanent changes in wage rates. Thus, income and substitution effects cancel, but are they both close to zero or both large? This paper develops a theory of labor supply where income and substitution effects cancel, taking into account optimization over time,...