对大幅上调最低工资的消费反应：来自西班牙的证据

This paper examines the effects of minimum wage increases on household consumption, focusing on Spain’s 2019 reform, which raised the wage floor by an unprecedented 22.3 percent in a low-inflation environment. Using high-frequency confidential card-based transaction data, we exploit geographic variation in exposure to the reform. We find that municipalities more exposed to the reform increased consumption by 4.5 percent relative to less-exposed municipalities, with the largest gains concentrated in categories such as electronics, leisure, and spending at restaurants and hotels. We complement this analysis with household-level evidence from the Spanish Household Budget Survey. Consistent with the transaction data, affected households increased their consumption substantially—by 10.2 percent—and exhibited a marginal propensity to consume of 0.8, with spending gains also concentrated in discretionary categories. Combining evidence from both sources, our findings are suggestive of sizable local demand spillovers. Firm-level sectoral evidence further suggests that the costs of the reform were primarily absorbed through the exit of less productive firms rather than through broad employment or price adjustments.