Abstract
The increasing availability of data derived from linked consumer financial accounts has the potential to dramatically expand the potential for research. Examining the most comprehensive existing set of linked-account data, consisting of transaction and balance sheet data for millions of Americans, I demonstrate the power and versatility of such sources. I discuss advantages and concerns arising from this type of data andmatch a range of distributionalmoments to external sources. As one application, I test consumption elasticities across households with varying levels, and types, of debt. I find that heterogeneity in consumption elasticity can be explained entirely by credit and liquidity.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1504-1557 |
| Number of pages | 54 |
| Journal | Journal of Political Economy |
| Volume | 126 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 1 2018 |
Funding
Thanks to Nicholas Bloom, Caroline Hoxby, Luigi Pistaferri, Ran Abramitzky, Steven Davis, Shai Bernstein, Bob Hall, Pablo Kurlat, John Taylor, Itay Saporta, Andrey Fradkin, Peter Troyan, Siddharth Kothari, and Frederic Panier for their invaluable advice and support. Thanks also to numerous seminar participants and to the editors and referees at the JPE for their helpful comments and suggestions. This research was supported by the Bradley Research Fellowship through the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. The author was a paid part-time employee of the firm owning the data utilized for this paper but was not paid for work related to the paper, and the paper was not subject to review by the firm prior to release. Data are provided as supplementary material online.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Economics and Econometrics