We evaluate the consistency of two methods for estimating the effect of an economic policy: i) surveying people to report the change in their behavior caused by the policy, ii) inferring this change using (reported) actual behavior and differences in treatment across people. Both methods have...

Analyzing account-level data from an account aggregator, we find that households increase consumption when they receive (expected) tax refunds, as if they face liquidity constraints. However, these same households smooth consumption when making payments in other years, primarily by transferring...

In the period since the 1960's, as in other periods, aggregate time series on real wages have displayed only modest cyclicality. Macroeconomists therefore have described weak cyclicality of real wages as a salient feature of the business cycle. Contrary to this conventional wisdom, our analysis...