Innocent Bystanders? Monetary policy and inequality

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Coibion, Olivier; Gorodnichenko, Yuriy; Kueng, Lorenz; Silvia, John
• 署名单位: University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of California System; University of California Berkeley; Northwestern University; Wells Fargo Company
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF MONETARY ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3932
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2017.05.005
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 70-89
• 关键词: Monetary policy; income inequality; consumption inequality

摘要

We study the effects of monetary policy shocks on-and their historical contribution to-consumption and income inequality in the United States since 1980 as measured by the Consumer Expenditure Survey. Contractionary monetary policy systematically increases inequality in labor earnings, total income, consumption and total expenditures. Furthermore, monetary policy shocks account for a non-trivial component of the historical cyclical variation in income and consumption inequality. Using detailed micro-level data on income and consumption, we document some of the different channels via which monetary policy shocks affect inequality, as well as how these channels depend on the nature of the change in monetary policy. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.