Do liquidity constraints and interest rates matter for consumer behavior? Evidence from credit card data

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Gross, DB; Souleles, NS
• 署名单位: University of Pennsylvania; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-5533
• DOI: 10.1162/003355302753399472
• 发表日期: 2002
• 页码: 149-185
• 关键词: household consumption; permanent-income; POLICY

摘要

This paper utilizes a unique data set of credit card accounts to analyze how people respond to credit supply. Increases in credit limits generate an immediate and significant rise in debt, counter to the Permanent-Income Hypothesis. The MPC out of liquidity is largest for people starting near their limit, consistent with binding liquidity constraints. However, the MPC is significant even for people starting well below their limit, consistent with precautionary models. Nonetheless, there are other results that conventional models cannot easily explain, for example, why so many people are borrowing on their credit cards, and simultaneously holding low yielding assets. The long-run elasticity of debt to the interest rate is approximately -1.3, less than half of which represents balance-shifting across cards.