Why Don't Households Smooth Consumption? Evidence from a $25 Million Experiment

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Parker, Jonathan A.
• 署名单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MACROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7707
• DOI: 10.1257/mac.20150331
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 153-183
• 关键词: economic stimulus payments; liquidity constraints; predictable changes; interest-rates; self-control; income; WEALTH; credit; Heterogeneity; security

摘要

This paper evaluates theoretical explanations for the propensity of households to increase spending in response to the arrival of predictable, lump-sum payments, using households in the Nielsen Consumer Panel who received $25 million in randomly distributed stimulus payments. The pattern of spending is inconsistent with models in which identical households cycle rapidly through high and low-response states as they manage liquidity, but is instead highly predictable by income years before the payment. Spending responses are unrelated to expectation errors, almost unrelated to crude measures of procrastination and self-control, significantly related to sophistication and planning, and highly related to impatience.