Management Science · 2025 · Daniel Berkowitz、Andrew J. Boslett、Jason P. Brown、Jeremy G. Weber
中文摘要
我们利用水力压裂技术的起源来研究人们如何应对巨大且不确定的永久性收入冲击。继2003年水力压裂具有商业可行性的消息传来之后，拥有巴尼特页岩(Barnett Shale)天然气矿藏权利的普通人，可以合理预期通过将权利租赁给能源公司获得现值约33,000美元的收入。由于预期到这笔收入，截至2006年，在2006年之后签署租约的人比未签署租约者多借了5,400美元。尚未签署的租约无法用作抵押品，这表明是永久收入增加的预期而非信贷约束的放松推动了租约持有人的借贷。一个利用观测到的油井生产率以及不可再生资源定价的霍特林法则(Hotelling's rule)的消费平滑模型表明，截至2006年的借贷是理性的，甚至偏于保守。当2009–2019年天然气价格意外暴跌时，租约持有人减少了债务，其拖欠率和破产率表明财务困境有限，说明他们在签署租约之前的借贷并非冲动之举。
Abstract
We use the origins of fracking to study how people respond to a large and uncertain permanent income shock. Following the arrival of news in 2003 that fracking was commercially viable, the average person owning rights to natural gas deposits in the Barnett Shale could plausibly expect to earn a present value of about $33,000 from leasing the rights to energy firms. Anticipating the income, people who signed leases after 2006 borrowed $5,400 more than nonleaseholders as of 2006. Leases not yet signed could not be collateralized, suggesting that expectations of increased permanent income rather than relaxed credit constraints drove leaseholder borrowing. A consumption smoothing model that uses observed well productivity and Hotelling’s rule for pricing nonrenewable resources suggests that borrowing as of 2006 was rational to conservative. When natural gas prices unexpectedly crashed during 2009–2019, leaseholders reduced their debt and had delinquency and bankruptcy rates that indicate limited financial distress, suggesting that their borrowing prior to signing a lease was not impulsive.