A wide body of empirical evidence, based on randomized experiments, finds that 20-40 percent of fiscal stimulus payments (e.g. tax rebates) are spent on non-durable household consumption in the quarter that they are received. We develop a structural economic model to interpret this evidence. Our model integrates the classical Baumol-Tobin model of money demand into the workhorse incomplete-markets life-cycle economy. In this framework, households can hold two assets: a low-return liquid asset (e.g., cash, checking account) and a high-return illiquid asset (e.g., housing, retirement account) that carries a transaction cost. The optimal life-cycle pattern of wealth accumulation implies that many households are "wealthy hand-to-mouth": they hold little or no liquid wealth despite owning sizable quantities of illiquid assets. They therefore display large propensities to consume out of additional income. We document the existence of such households in data from the Survey of Consumer Finances. A version of the model parametrized to the 2001 tax rebate episode is able to generate consumption responses to fiscal stimulus payments that are in line with the data.

A Model of the Consumption Response to Fiscal Stimulus Payments

A wide body of empirical evidence, based on randomized experiments, finds that 20-40 percent of fiscal stimulus payments (e.g. tax rebates) are spent on nondurable household consumption in the quarter that they are received. We develop a structural economic model to interpret this evidence. Our model integrates the classical Baumol-Tobin model of money demand into the workhorse incomplete-markets life-cycle economy. In this framework, households can hold two assets: a low-return liquid asset (e.g., cash, checking account) and a high-return illiquid asset (e.g., housing, retirement account) that carries a transaction cost. The optimal life-cycle pattern of wealth accumulation implies that many households are “wealthy hand-to-mouth”: they hold little or no liquid wealth despite owning sizeable quantities of illiquid assets. They therefore display large propensities to consume out of additional income. We document the existence of such households in data from the Survey of Consumer Finances. A version of the model parameterized to the 2001 tax rebate episode is able to generate consumption responses to fiscal stimulus payments that are in line with the data.

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The wealthy hand-to-mouth are households who hold little or no liquid wealth (cash, checking, and savings accounts), despite owning sizable amounts of illiquid assets (assets that carry a transaction cost, such as housing or retirement accounts). We use survey data on household portfolios for the U.S., Canada, Australia, the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, and Spain to document the share of such households across countries, their demographic characteristics, the composition of their balance sheets, and the persistence of hand-to-mouth status over the life cycle. The portfolio configuration of the wealthy hand-to-mouth suggests that these households may have a high marginal propensity to consume out of transitory income changes, a prediction for which we find empirical support in PSID data. We explain the implications of this group of consumers for macroeconomic modeling and fiscal policy analysis.

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The wealthy hand-to-mouth

This paper presents new empirical evidence in support of the view that a significant fraction of total saving is motivated solely by the desire to leave bequests. Specifically, I find that Social Security annuity benefits significantly raise life insurance holdings and depress private annuity holdings among elderly individuals. These patterns indicate that the typical household would choose to maintain a positive fraction of its resources in bequeathable forms, even if insurance markets were perfect. Evidence on the relationship between insurance purchases and total resources reinforces this conclusion.

How Strong are Bequest Motives? Evidence Based on Estimates of the Demand for Life Insurance and Annuities

Maybe Greenberg hadn’t come across Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy. Raghuram G. Rajan, a professor at the University of Chicago and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, proves the exception to Greenberg’s rule of unsatisfactory endings. Where others have delved into the personalities and perverse systems that led to the financial crisis and then summed up with a half­baked list of policy ideas, Rajan puts a premium on policy. In fact, nearly half of Fault Lines is dedicated to policy choices that Rajan believes are not only realistically achievable but likely to be quite effective. He makes a good case.

Fault Lines How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten The World Economy

We study the effect of bank capital on the supply of mortgages. We fully control for endogenous matching between borrowers, loan contracts, and banks by submitting randomized mortgage applications to the major online mortgage broker in Italy. We find that: higher bank capital is associated with a higher likelihood of application acceptance and lower offered interest rates; banks with lower capital reject applications by riskier borrowers and offer lower rates to safer ones. Finally, nonparametric estimates of the probability of acceptance and of the offered rate show that the effect of bank capital is stronger when capital is low.

/pdf/how-does-bank-capital-affect-the-supply-of-mortgages-xt18k97u8c.pdf

How does bank capital affect the supply of mortgages? Evidence from a randomized experiment

We build a microsimulation model to monitor the financial vulnerability of Italian households. Starting from household-level data from the Survey on Household Income and Wealth and matching them with macroeconomic forecasts on debt and income, we project the future path of households’ indebtedness and debt-service ratio. This allows us to assess households’ vulnerability at a higher frequency and in a more timely manner than by using household data alone. We find that the share of vulnerable households (defined as those with a debt-service ratio above 30 per cent and income below the median) over the total population is projected to be about stable between 2012 and 2014, with a slight decrease in 2015 due to positive income growth. Their debt is also projected to decrease in those years. Overall, we find that the dynamics of income growth are the main driver of households’ vulnerability.

/pdf/a-microsimulation-model-to-evaluate-italian-households-4rf895ganv.pdf

A Microsimulation Model to Evaluate Italian Households’ Financial Vulnerability

We build a life-cycle model with earnings risk, liquidity constraints, and portfolio choice over tax-deferred and taxable assets to evaluate how household consumption changes in response to shocks to transitory anticipated income, such as the 2001 income tax rebate. Households optimally invest in tax-deferred assets, which are encumbered by withdrawal penalties, and exchange taxable precautionary savings for higher after-tax returns. The model predicts a higher marginal propensity to consume out of a rebate than is predicted by a standard frictionless life-cycle model. Liquidity-constrained households—with few financial assets or portfolios expensive to reallocate—consume a higher fraction of the rebates. (JEL D91, E21, G11, H24)

/pdf/can-tax-rebates-stimulate-consumption-spending-in-a-life-4nsveeu4v0.pdf

Can Tax Rebates Stimulate Consumption Spending in a Life-Cycle Model?†

We build a microsimulation model to monitor the financial vulnerability of Italian households. Starting from household-level data from the Survey on Household Income and Wealth and matching them with macroeconomic forecasts on debt and income, we project the future path of householdsi?½ indebtedness and debt-service ratio. This allows us to assess householdsi?½ vulnerability at a higher frequency and in a more timely manner than by using household data alone. We find that the share of vulnerable households (defined as those with a debt-service ratio above 30 per cent and income below the median) over the total population is projected to be about stable between 2012 and 2014, with a slight decrease in 2015 due to positive income growth. Their debt is also projected to decrease in those years. Overall, we find that the dynamics of income growth are the main driver of householdsi?½ vulnerability.

/pdf/a-microsimulation-model-to-evaluate-italian-householdss-3jp5jln1kk.pdf

A microsimulation model to evaluate Italian householdss financial vulnerability

A nonlinear programming formulation is introduced to solve infinite horizon dynamic programming problems. This extends the linear approach to dynamic programming by using ideas from approximation theory to avoid inefficient discretization. Our numerical results show that this nonlinear programming method is efficient and accurate.

Valentina Michelangeli

Papers

How does bank capital affect the supply of mortgages? Evidence from a randomized experiment

A Microsimulation Model to Evaluate Italian Households’ Financial Vulnerability

Can Tax Rebates Stimulate Consumption Spending in a Life-Cycle Model?†

A microsimulation model to evaluate Italian householdss financial vulnerability

Nonlinear Programming Method for Dynamic Programming