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The Macroeconomic Implications of Coholding
with Andrej Mijakovic.
July 2024.
Bank of Canada Staff Working Paper 2024-16.
[abstract]
In the U.S., over 25% of households are coholders who simultaneously borrow on credit cards and hold cash. This generates rich marginal distributions of gross positions that underpin the distribution of net wealth often used to calibrate macroeconomic models. We show that, beyond constructing net wealth, gross positions of liquid assets and debt are important determinants of how households consume, save, and repay debt in response to income shocks. We build a model that generates aggregate distributions and household behavior in line with the data, and use it to study the implications of coholding for fiscal and monetary policy.
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Evaluating Credit Card Minimum Payment Restrictions
with Jason Allen and Benedict Guttman-Kenney.
June 2024.
Bank of Canada Staff Working Paper 2024-26.
[abstract]
We study a government policy that restricts repayment choices with the aim of reducing credit card debt. The policy requires credit card minimum payments in Quebec to be at least 2% of the statement balance for cards opened before August 2019 and at least 5% for cards opened from August 2019. The rest of Canada is unaffected. We estimate this policy’s effects by applying a difference-in-differences methodology to comprehensive Canadian consumer credit reporting data. The policy causes a persistent increase in minimum payments. The policy has trade-offs: reducing revolving debt comes at a cost of reducing credit access, and potentially increasing delinquency.
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Backfiring in Bad Times: When Rent Control Keeps Rent Too High
with Geneviève Vallée.
April 2024.
[abstract]
Rent control, intended to benefit renters by capping rent increases, may disincentivize landlords from lowering rents during temporary negative demand shocks because they are unable to quickly increase rent afterward. To test this prediction, I use a unique combination of exogenous variation in rent control policy in Toronto and a negative demand shock induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. In line with theory, rent per square foot decreased by 1.7% for rent controlled units and 4.7% for exempt units. Using a model of differentiated demand, I construct a counterfactual exercise and estimate that in the absence of rent control, rent would have decreased by 8.3% for rent-controlled units and 8.1% for exempt units.
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Targeted vs. Timely Fiscal Stimulus Payments.
March 2024.
[abstract]
This paper analyzes the tradeoff between targeted versus timely fiscal stimulus payments in a quantitative two-sector HANK model. In response to a negative sectoral shock, fiscal policy is specified as the total size of transfers, the degree of targeting towards households in the affected sector, and the length of periods until the policy can be implemented. The key trade-off in the model is that the degree of targeting is increasing in the delay until policy can be implemented. In the baseline calibration of symmetric equilibrium with one household wholly employed in each sector, the key result is that fully targeting the stimulus program to the household in the affected sector yields less total welfare than intermediate levels of targeting.
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Evaluating the Impact of Economic Impact Payments.
December 2020.
[abstract]
As part of the CARES Act, the IRS distributed $300 billion in Economic Impact Payments (EIPs) directly to US households. In the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey (HPS), almost 75% of households receiving an EIP reported mostly spending it. Conditioning on labor status, 63% of employed households reported mostly spending their EIPs, compared to 84% of unemployed households. Both types of households reported spending largely on consumption goods, but unemployed households tended to pay regular bills while employed households paid down debt or increased savings. The evidence suggests that in designing an untargeted stimulus program and trading off potential efficacy for timeliness, Economic Impact Payments were overall very effective in supporting consumer spending.