IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sef/csefwp/396.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Liquidity and Consumption. Evidence from three Post-earthquakes Reconstruction Programs in Italy

Author

Abstract

Exploiting three earthquakes as quasi-experiments, we analyze the response of homeowners’ consumption to public programs financing the costs of housing reconstruction, which increase households’ liquidity significantly in the short run. Although over a multi-year horizon consumption is unaffected, upfront disbursement of funds has a sizable impact on the nondurable consumption of households with low liquidity and bank debt (‘wealthy-handto- mouth’); it makes no difference for liquid households. The consumption of both groups of households is instead insensitive to funds paid directly to firms for reconstruction work, rather than channeled trough households.

Suggested Citation

  • Antonio Acconcia & Giancarlo Corsetti & Saverio Simonelli, 2015. "Liquidity and Consumption. Evidence from three Post-earthquakes Reconstruction Programs in Italy," CSEF Working Papers 396, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy, revised 16 May 2018.
    • Handle: RePEc:sef:csefwp:396
    Note: This is a substantially revised version of a paper previously circulated with the title “The Consumption Response to Liquidity-Enhancing Transfers: Evidence from Italian Earthquakes”
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.csef.it/WP/wp396.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Porcelli, Francesco & Trezzi, Riccardo, 2014. "Shake me the money!," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86339, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Nicholas S. Souleles & Jonathan A. Parker & David S. Johnson, 2006. "Household Expenditure and the Income Tax Rebates of 2001," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1589-1610, December.
    3. David B. Gross & Nicholas S. Souleles, 2002. "Do Liquidity Constraints and Interest Rates Matter for Consumer Behavior? Evidence from Credit Card Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(1), pages 149-185.
    4. Eduardo Cavallo & Ilan Noy, 2009. "The Economics of Natural Disasters: A Survey," Research Department Publications 4649, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    5. Noy, Ilan, 2009. "The macroeconomic consequences of disasters," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 221-231, March.
    6. Piero Cipollone & Alfonso Rosolia, 2007. "Social Interactions in High School: Lessons from an Earthquake," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 948-965, June.
    7. Tullio Jappelli & Jörn-Steffen Pischke & Nicholas S. Souleles, 1998. "Testing For Liquidity Constraints In Euler Equations With Complementary Data Sources," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(2), pages 251-262, May.
    8. Yasuyuki Sawada & Satoshi Shimizutani, 2008. "How Do People Cope with Natural Disasters? Evidence from the Great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) Earthquake in 1995," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(2-3), pages 463-488, March.
    9. Sumit Agarwal & Chunlin Liu & Nicholas S. Souleles, 2007. "The Reaction of Consumer Spending and Debt to Tax Rebates-Evidence from Consumer Credit Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(6), pages 986-1019, December.
    10. Jonathan A. Parker & Nicholas S. Souleles & David S. Johnson & Robert McClelland, 2013. "Consumer Spending and the Economic Stimulus Payments of 2008," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(6), pages 2530-2553, October.
    11. Kanishka Misra & Paolo Surico, 2014. "Consumption, Income Changes, and Heterogeneity: Evidence from Two Fiscal Stimulus Programs," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 84-106, October.
    12. Greg Kaplan & Giovanni L. Violante & Justin Weidner, 2014. "The Wealthy Hand-to-Mouth," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 45(1 (Spring), pages 77-153.
    13. Matthew D. Shapiro & Joel Slemrod, 2009. "Did the 2008 Tax Rebates Stimulate Spending?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 374-379, May.
    14. Hochrainer, Stefan, 2009. "Assessing the macroeconomic impacts of natural disasters : are there any ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4968, The World Bank.
    15. anonymous, 2008. "Did you know? A primer on credit default swaps," Financial Update, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, vol. 21(2).
    16. Eduardo Cavallo & Ilan Noy, 2009. "The Economics of Natural Disasters - A Survey," Working Papers 200919, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    17. Nicholas S. Souleles, 1999. "The Response of Household Consumption to Income Tax Refunds," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 947-958, September.
    18. Tullio Jappelli, 1990. "Who is Credit Constrained in the U. S. Economy?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(1), pages 219-234.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Johar, Meliyanni & Johnston, David W. & Shields, Michael A. & Siminski, Peter & Stavrunova, Olena, 2022. "The economic impacts of direct natural disaster exposure," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 26-39.
    2. Ferrara, Laurent & Metelli, Luca & Natoli, Filippo & Siena, Daniele, 2021. "Questioning the puzzle: Fiscal policy, real exchange rate and inflation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    3. Zach Raff, 2023. "Identifying the regulator’s objective: Does political support matter?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 194(3), pages 277-295, March.
    4. Javier Andrés & José E. Boscá & Javier Ferri & Cristina Fuentes‐Albero, 2022. "Households' Balance Sheets and the Effect of Fiscal Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(4), pages 737-778, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Corsetti, Giancarlo & Simonelli, Saverio & Acconcia, Antonio, 2015. "The Consumption Response to Liquidity-Enhancing Transfers: Evidence from Italian Earthquakes," CEPR Discussion Papers 10698, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Jonathan A. Parker & Nicholas S. Souleles & David S. Johnson & Robert McClelland, 2013. "Consumer Spending and the Economic Stimulus Payments of 2008," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(6), pages 2530-2553, October.
    3. Grant Graziani & Wilbert Van der Klaauw & Basit Zafar, 2013. "A boost in the paycheck: survey evidence on workers’ response to the 2011 payroll tax cuts," Staff Reports 592, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    4. Deniz Aydin, 2015. "The Marginal Propensity to Consume out of Liquidity," Discussion Papers 15-010, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    5. Rodney Ramcharan & Amir Kermani & Marco Di Maggio, 2015. "Monetary Policy Pass-Through: Household Consumption and Voluntary Deleveraging," 2015 Meeting Papers 256, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    6. d’Astous, Philippe, 2019. "Responses to an anticipated increase in cash on hand: Evidence from term loan repayments," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    7. Sumit Agarwal & Gene Amromin & Souphala Chomsisengphet & Tim Landvoigt & Tomasz Piskorski & Amit Seru & Vincent Yao, 2015. "Mortgage Refinancing, Consumer Spending, and Competition: Evidence from the Home Affordable Refinancing Program," NBER Working Papers 21512, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. David Cashin & Jamie Lenney & Byron Lutz & William Peterman, 2018. "Fiscal policy and aggregate demand in the USA before, during, and following the Great Recession," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(6), pages 1519-1558, December.
    9. María Pía Olivero & Mikheil Dvalishvili, 2023. "What do fiscal stimulus packages mean for household debt?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 41(2), pages 282-299, April.
    10. Deniz Aydin, 2015. "The marginal propensity to consume out of liquidity: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial," 2015 Meeting Papers 270, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Agarwal, Sumit & Chomsisengphet, Souphala & Meier, Stephan & Zou, Xin, 2020. "In the mood to consume: Effect of sunshine on credit card spending," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    12. Kreiner, Claus Thustrup & Lassen, David Dreyer, 2012. "Consumer Responses to Fiscal Stimulus Policy and Households? Cost of Liquidity," CEPR Discussion Papers 9161, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Kubota, So & Onishi, Koichiro & Toyama, Yuta, 2021. "Consumption responses to COVID-19 payments: Evidence from a natural experiment and bank account data," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 1-17.
    14. Giovanni L. Violante & Greg Kaplan, 2022. "The Marginal Propensity to Consume in Heterogeneous Agent Models," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 747-775, August.
    15. Dimitris Christelis & Dimitris Georgarakos & Tullio Jappelli & Luigi Pistaferri & Maarten van Rooij, 2019. "Asymmetric Consumption Effects of Transitory Income Shocks," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(622), pages 2322-2341.
    16. Campbell, J.R. & Hercowitz, Zvi, 2018. "Liquidity Constraints of the Middle Class (revision of CentER DP 2015-009)," Discussion Paper 2018-039, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    17. Christopher D. Carroll & Edmund Crawley & Jiri Slacalek & Kiichi Tokuoka & Matthew N. White, 2020. "Sticky Expectations and Consumption Dynamics," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 40-76, July.
    18. Sumit Agarwal & Chunlin Liu & Nicholas S. Souleles, 2007. "The Reaction of Consumer Spending and Debt to Tax Rebates-Evidence from Consumer Credit Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(6), pages 986-1019, December.
    19. Karlan, Dean & Osman, Adam & Zinman, Jonathan, 2016. "Follow the money not the cash: Comparing methods for identifying consumption and investment responses to a liquidity shock," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 11-23.
    20. Orazio P. Attanasio & Guglielmo Weber, 2010. "Consumption and Saving: Models of Intertemporal Allocation and Their Implications for Public Policy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(3), pages 693-751, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumption; Liquidity; Mortgage; Quasi-experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sef:csefwp:396. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dr. Maria Carannante (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cssalit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.