Using unique data on Canadian households, we assess the impact of financial advisors on their clients' portfolios. We find that advisors induce their clients to take more risk, thereby raising expected returns. On the other hand, we find limited evidence of customization: advisors direct clients...

This paper studies the impact of unemployment insurance (UI) on consumer credit markets. Exploiting heterogeneity in UI generosity across U.S. states and over time, we find that UI helps the unemployed avoid defaulting on their mortgage debt. We estimate that UI expansions during the Great...

We introduce and quantify a new channel through which the housing market affects household spending: the home purchase channel. Using an event-study design with data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, we show that households spend on average $3,700 more in the months before and the first year...

We investigate a novel determinant of household financial delinquency, namely, people's subjective expectations regarding the cost-benefit trade-off in default decisions. These expectations are determined by individuals' self-efficacy, which is a non-cognitive ability that measures how strongly...

We evaluate the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) by comparing the vehicle purchases and disposals of households with eligible "clunkers" to those of households with similar, but ineligible, vehicles. We find that CARS caused roughly 500,000 purchases during the program period and that the...