Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

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.

Zonder onderwerpscode: economie

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Zonder onderwerpscode: economie

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Zonder onderwerpscode: financiewezen

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Search theory routinely assumes that decisions about the acceptance/rejection of job offers (and, hence, about labor market movements between jobs or across employment states) are made by individuals acting in isolation. In reality, the vast majority of workers are somewhat tied to their partners--in couples and families--and decisions are made jointly. This paper studies, from a theoretical viewpoint, the joint job-search and location problem of a household formed by a couple (e.g., husband and wife) who perfectly pools income. The objective of the exercise, very much in the spirit of standard search theory, is to characterize the reservation wage behavior of the couple and compare it to the single-agent search model in order to understand the ramifications of partnerships for individual labor market outcomes and wage dynamics. We focus on two main cases. First, when couples are risk averse and pool income, joint search yields new opportunities--similar to on-the-job search--relative to the single-agent search. Second, when the two spouses in a couple face job offers from multiple locations and a cost of living apart, joint-search features new frictions and can lead to significantly worse outcomes than single-agent search.

Zonder onderwerpscode: economie

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This paper studies consumption and labor supply in a model where agents have partial insurance and face risk and initial heterogeneity in wages and preferences. Equilibrium allocations and variances and covariances of wages, hours and consumption are solved for analytically. We prove that all parameters of the structural model are identified given panel data on wages and hours, and cross-sectional data on consumption. The model is estimated on US data. Second moments involving hours and consumption show that the rise in wage dispersion in the 1970s was effectively insured by households, while the rise in the 1980s was not.

Zonder onderwerpscode: economie