We use regional variation in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009-2012) to analyze the effect of government spending on consumer spending. Our consumption data come from household-level retail purchases in Nielsen and auto purchases from Equifax credit balances. We estimate that a $1...

We use regional variation in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009-2012) to analyze the effect of government spending on consumer spending. Our consumption data come from household-level retail purchases in the Nielsen scanner data and auto purchases from Equifax credit balances. We...

This article provides an introductory, yet comprehensive, business cycle analysis of firm financing. Using data from Compustat, we find that debt issuance is procyclical while the net sale of stock is countercyclical. However, an equity financing measure that includes stock compensation and...

Unemployment insurance (UI) acts both as a disincentive for labor supply and as a demand stimulus, which may explain why empirical studies often find limited effects of UI on employment. This paper provides independent estimates of the disincentive effects arising from the largest expansion of...

Unemployment insurance (UI) acts both as a disincentive for labor supply and as a demand stimulus, which may explain why empirical studies often find limited effects of UI on employment. This paper provides independent estimates of the disincentive effects arising from the largest expansion of...

In this paper, we use data of life insurance holdings by age, sex, and marital status to infer how individuals value consumption in different demographic stages. Essentially, we use revealed preference to estimate equivalence scales and altruism simultaneously in the context of a fully specified...