Innocent Bystanders? Monetary policy and inequality

We study the effects of monetary policy shocks on—and their historical contribution to—consumption and income inequality in the United States since 1980 as measured by the Consumer Expenditure Survey. Contractionary monetary policy systematically increases inequality in labor earnings, total income, consumption and total expenditures. Furthermore, monetary policy shocks account for a non-trivial component of the historical cyclical variation in income and consumption inequality. Using detailed micro-level data on income and consumption, we document some of the different channels via which monetary policy shocks affect inequality, as well as how these channels depend on the nature of the change in monetary policy.     

Heterogeneous life-cycle profiles, income risk and consumption inequality

Was the increase in income inequality in the US due to permanent shocks or merely to an increase in the variance of transitory shocks? The implications for consumption and welfare depend crucially on the answer to this question. We use Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX) repeated cross-section data on consumption and income to decompose idiosyncratic changes in income into predictable life-cycle changes, transitory and permanent shocks and estimate the contribution of each to total inequality. Our model fits the joint evolution of consumption and income inequality well and delivers two main results. First, we find that permanent changes in income explain all of the increase in inequality in the 1980s and 1990s. Second, we reconcile this finding with the fact that consumption inequality did not increase much over this period. Our results support the view that many permanent changes in income are predictable for consumers, even if they look unpredictable to the econometrician, consistent with models of heterogeneous income profiles.     

Fiscal decentralization,equalization, and intra-provincial inequality in China

Using a nationwide county-level panel dataset for the years 1995–2009, this paper conducts the first analysis in the literature to examine the impacts of fiscal decentralization and fiscal equalization, both measured at the sub-provincial level, on intra-provincial inequality in China. While fiscal decentralization offers significant advantages regarding public expenditure efficiency, a potentially large disadvantage is that it may lead to increased regional inequality. In this paper, in line with our theoretical hypotheses, we find that while fiscal decentralization at the sub-provincial level in China leads to larger intra-provincial inequality, fiscal equalization efforts performed by provincial governments tend to mitigate the detrimental effect of fiscal decentralization on intra-provincial inequality. Our results also indicate that the quantitative effects of fiscal decentralization on regional inequality tend to be larger when they are measured from the expenditure side, which is consistent with the fact that expenditure decentralization is a much more meaningful measure of decentralization in China. Overall, we provide evidence on the potential inequality costs of using fiscal decentralization as a development strategy. At the same time, we emphasize the importance of implementing a fiscal equalization program to ensure the overall success of decentralization policy.     

我国股市财富效应对居民消费影响的实证检验——基于生命周期—持久收入理论扩展模型的新视角

基于生命周期-持久收入(LC-PIH)理论,本文建立居民收入、消费支出、股市市值和购房支出几个变量之间的实证检验模型,以研究我国股市的财富效应。选取季度和月度频率数据,测算我国2003~2018年全口径居民消费和2013~2018年乘用车消费的股市财富效应,实证结果发现全口径居民消费主要受收入的影响,股市的财富效应不显著,检验结果符合持久收入说;乘用车消费除受收入的影响之外,股市的财富效应也显著。基于实证结果,并结合发达国家较为普遍存在的财富效应,提出三点建议:一是稳步提高居民可支配收入,是促进我国消费平稳增长、发挥消费拉动经济增长基础性作用的根本;二是要发挥出股市在消费中的财富效应,需改变我国股市长期存在的牛短熊长困境;三是应进一步提高我国居民通过养老金和企业年金等间接渠道参与股市的比重,使养老金、企业年金等长期资金与资本市场形成良性互动。     

Peer Effects in Consumption Among Chinese Rural Households

This article attempts to identify peer effects in household consumption in rural China using the Chinese Household Finance Survey (CHFS) 2011 data. In addition to the selection effect, reflection problem and correlated effect, we address the actual peer problem via the matching method in identifying the peer effect. It is found that as peer household’s consumption expenditure increases by 1%, the household’s consumption would increase by 0.24%. It is also found that richer households are more susceptible to peer pressure in consumption decisions. Finally, household is more sensitive to changes in the consumption of poorer peers, relative to their richer peers.     

Consumption and risk sharing over the life cycle

A striking feature of U.S. data on income and consumption is that inequality increases with age. This paper asks if individual-specific earnings risk can provide a coherent explanation. We find that it can. We construct an overlapping generations general equilibrium model in which households face uninsurable earnings shocks over the course of their lifetimes. Earnings inequality is exogenous and is calibrated to match data from the U.S. Panel Study on Income Dynamics. Consumption inequality is endogenous and matches well data from the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey. The total risk households face is decomposed into that realized before entering the labor market and that realized throughout the working years. In welfare terms, the latter is found to be more important than the former.     

收入不平等、政府支出与实际汇率——基于跨国面板数据的研究

已有较多研究讨论了实际汇率的决定因素,而从收入不平等角度出发的研究并不多。本文搜集和整理了172个国家和地区1970年到2016年的跨国面板数据,分析了收入不平等对一国实际汇率的影响,并引入政府支出探究了收入分配对非贸易品部门和实际汇率的影响机制。实证检验结果表明,对于非OECD国家,收入不平等和实际汇率显著负相关,即收入越不平等,实际汇率高估越严重,而在OECD国家中这一现象并不存在。进一步的影响机制分析发现,对于非OECD国家,一国收入不平等加剧会导致该国政府支出增多,从而扩大了非贸易品部门规模,导致非贸易品的相对价格上升,使得实际汇率高估。     

The Explanatory Power and the Forecast Performance of Consumer Confidence Indices for Private Consumption Growth in Turkey

In this study, we assess empirically whether consumer confidence indices contain information about future private consumption growth in Turkey. To this end, we estimate models for quarterly total, durable, and nondurable consumption growth with and without sentiment indicators. We evaluate in-sample forecasts and one-step-ahead out-of-sample forecasts from recursive ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates. We also test permanent income and precautionary savings hypotheses with our results. We use overall indices of CNBC-e and Turkstat-CBRT Surveys, and Consumer Expectations Index (CEI) and Propensity to Consume Index (PCI) from the CNBC-e Survey as sentiment measures. We show that the lagged values of consumer sentiment have explanatory power on consumption growth. However, when used in conjunction with other economic variables such as real labor income, real stock price, real interest rate, and exchange rate, only CNBC-e for total consumption, and CBRT and PCI for nondurable consumption provide independent information about future consumption growth. Similarly, the gains in out-of-sample forecasts are observed under the absence of other variables and disappear in almost all cases following their inclusion to the estimations. Finally, we find no clear evidence for either precautionary savings motive or permanent income hypothesis on the link between consumer sentiment and future total consumption changes.     

Is consumption risk priced in the stock market?

The paper examines whether the risk in the consumption of stockholders caused by incomplete consumption insurance is priced in the cross-section of average stock returns. Using Taylor series expansion of the average marginal utility of consumption, we show that the risk in the consumption of stock market participants can be decomposed into two components, insurable (hedgeable using financial assets) and uninsurable (caused by incomplete consumption insurance) consumption risks. We argue that the growth rate of average consumption may be viewed as a proxy for the insurable component of consumption risk, while the growth rates of the rescaled higher-order cross-sectional consumption distribution moments may be regarded as a multivariate proxy for uninsurable risk in consumption. Exploiting microlevel household quarterly consumption data from the US Consumer Expenditure Survey, we find that both components of consumption risk are significantly priced when the limited stock market participation is taken into account. Neither the insurable and uninsurable components of consumption risk nor the Fama–French risk factors are rejected as capturing important components of systematic risk when tested against each other in an integrated multifactor asset pricing model.     

The Dynamics of Household Wealth Accumulation in Italy

We examine the dynamics of wealth accumulation distribution in Italy using data drawn from the Survey of Household Income and Wealth, a representative survey of the Italian population conducted by the Bank of Italy. We compare survey data with National Accounts data and discuss sample representativeness, attrition and measurement issues. We then look at wealth inequality (the cross‐sectional dispersion of wealth) and wealth mobility (individual transitions across the wealth distribution) and examine the age profile of wealth using repeated cross‐sectional data. Finally, we consider various explanations for the pattern of wealth accumulation in Italy, focusing on retirement, bequests, income risk, health shocks and credit market imperfections.     

Stock Price Distributions and News: Evidence from Index Options

We estimate the shape of the distribution of stock prices using data from options on the underlying asset, and test whether this distribution is distorted in a systematic manner each time a particular news event occurs. In particular we look at the response of the FTSE100 index to market wide announcements of key macroeconomic indicators and policy variables. We show that the whole distribution of stock prices can be distorted on an event day. The shift in distributional shape happens whether the event is characterized as an announcement occurrence or as a measured surprise. We find that larger surprises have proportionately greater impact, and that higher moments are more sensitive to events however characterised.     

Reconciling conflicting evidence on the elasticity of intertemporal substitution: A macroeconomic perspective

In this paper we reconcile two opposing views about the elasticity of intertemporal substitution (EIS). Empirical studies using aggregate consumption data typically find the EIS to be close to zero, whereas calibrated models designed to match growth and fluctuations facts typically require it to be close to one. This contradiction is resolved when two kinds of heterogeneity are acknowledged: one, the majority of households do not participate in stock markets; and two, the EIS increases with wealth. We introduce these two features into a standard real business cycle model. First, limited participation creates substantial wealth inequality as in the U.S. data. Consequently, the properties of aggregates directly linked to wealth (e.g., investment and output) are mainly determined by the (high-EIS) stockholders. Since consumption is much more evenly distributed than is wealth, estimation from aggregate consumption uncovers the low EIS of the majority (i.e., the poor).     

International Trends in Income Inequality and Social Policy

In most OECD-countries income inequality has increased during the last two decades. In this paper, we investigate whether changes in the overall distribution of income can be attributed to social policy measures. For most (but not all) countries we find a possible relationship between changing welfare state policies (as measured by expenditure ratios and replacement rates) and changing income inequality. Especially the United Kingdom and the Netherlands combined an above-average rise in inequality with a reduction in the generosity of the welfare system.A more elaborate budget incidence analysis for the Netherlands indicates that in the period 1981–1997 inequality of disposable household income increased sharply. The two main forces behind this phenomenon were a more unequal distribution of market incomes and changes in social transfers. Fundamental social security reforms in the Netherlands indeed seem to have made the income distribution less equal. However, income inequality in the Netherlands is still below the OECD average at the end of the observed period.     

Wealth shocks,unemployment shocks and consumption in the wake of the Great Recession

Data from the 2009 Internet Survey of the Health and Retirement Study show that many US households experienced large capital losses in housing and financial wealth, and that 5% of respondents lost their job during the Great Recession. For every loss of 10% in housing and financial wealth, the estimated drop in household expenditure was about 0.56% and 0.9%, respectively. Those who became unemployed reduced spending by 10%. In line with predictions of standard inter-temporal choice models, households who perceived the stock market shock to be permanent adjusted spending much more than those who perceived the shock to be temporary.     

Stock returns and income inequality: Asymmetric evidence from state level data in the U.S.

We assess the impact of stock returns on income inequality in the U.S. using linear and nonlinear models. When we use income inequality data from the U.S. as a whole, we only find un-equalizing effects of stock returns in the short run. However, when we estimate the models for each state individually, the linear model yields significant short-run effects in 38 states that last into the long run in 17 states. The numbers increase to 42 and 24, respectively, when we estimate the nonlinear model. In the most affected states, we find that positive stock returns have un-equalizing effects on income inequality and negative returns have equalizing effects.     

Value Relevance of Comprehensive Income for the Canadian Market*

The value relevance of comprehensive income (CI) compared to net income (NI) remains unresolved. We look at this issue in the Canadian market, using association methods to determine the value relevance of reporting CI and other comprehensive income (OCI) components for stock prices and returns. The sample consists of all the firms in the S&P/TSX Composite Index that prepared their financial statements according to Canadian standards or International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) over the 2008–2016 period. Although we find no evidence that CI is more value relevant than NI for stock prices and returns, we note that some OCI components are incrementally value relevant beyond NI for both amounts. In addition, financial services firms differ from other companies in terms of the relationships between some of their OCI components and prices or returns, with such firms even driving some relationships. Relationships between OCI components and prices or returns are also affected when data from the financial crisis period are excluded, with some relationships even changing after IFRS adoption. These results inform Canadian standard setters and financial statement users that OCI components are decision useful for the Canadian market.     

Lazy Investors, Discretionary Consumption, and the Cross-Section of Stock Returns

When consumption betas of stocks are computed using year‐over‐year consumption growth based upon the fourth quarter, the consumption‐based asset pricing model (CCAPM) explains the cross‐section of stock returns as well as the Fama and French (1993) three‐factor model. The CCAPM's performance deteriorates substantially when consumption growth is measured based upon other quarters. For the CCAPM to hold at any given point in time, investors must make their consumption and investment decisions simultaneously at that point in time. We suspect that this is more likely to happen during the fourth quarter, given investors' tax year ends in December.     

信用卡、风险应对与城镇家庭股市参与

信用卡市场的发展有利于家庭平滑消费,但是否会影响家庭的投资决策尚缺少事实检验。基于中国家庭金融调查(CHFS)2011和2013年的调查数据,本文首次检验了信用卡对城镇家庭股市投资的影响。研究发现:(1)控制家庭财富、融资渠道、社会资本等特征,持有信用卡在边际上促进了家庭的股市参与率,股市投资额取决于信用额度。(2)中国信用卡市场的发展,并未像流动性约束理论预测的可以平滑消费,反而刺激了家庭风险性资产的配置,最终提高了储蓄率。原因在于,中国家庭更多地将信用卡作为应对未来短期突发性风险的金融工具,从而在当期将更多资产配置在风险资产上,以实现资本积累。使用信用卡数目、信用额度等多种衡量方式,并采用工具变量法(IV)和面板数据固定效应模型等解决内生性问题后,该结论稳健。该研究有助于理解信用卡在中国家庭投资决策的作用,并为流动性约束或有限股市参与假说提供中国经验。     

Corporate capital expenditure decisions and the market value of the firm

This paper is an ‘event-time’ study of the common stock prices of a sample of 658 corporations around the dates on which they publicly announced their future capital expenditure plans. For industrial firms, announcements of increases (decreases) in planned capital expenditures are associated with significant positive (negative) excess stock returns. For public utility firm, neither increases nor decreases in planned capital expenditures are associated with significant excess stock returns. We interpret the evidence as being consistent with the hypothesis that managers seek to maximize the market value of the firm in making their corporate capital expenditure decisions.     

Inequality,stock market participation,and the equity premium

The last 30 years saw substantial increases in wealth inequality and stock market participation, smaller increases in consumption inequality and the fraction of indebted households, a decline in interest rates and the expected equity premium, as well as a prolonged stock market boom. In an incomplete markets, overlapping generations model I jointly explain these trends by the observed rise in wage inequality, decrease in participation costs, and loosening of borrowing constraints. After accounting for these changes, I show that the stock market played a major role in increasing wealth inequality. Crucially, these phenomena must be considered jointly; studying one independently leads to counterfactual predictions about others.