中文摘要
大量实证证据发现，约25%的财政刺激支付（例如税收返还）在收到的当季度被用于家庭非耐用消费。为解释这一事实，我们构建了一个结构经济模型，其中家庭可以持有两种资产：低收益流动资产（例如现金、支票账户）和带有交易成本的高收益非流动资产（例如住房、退休账户）。投资组合选择的最优生命周期模式意味着，模型中的许多家庭属于“富裕的月光族”：尽管持有相当数量的非流动资产，但他们持有极少或不持有流动财富。因此，他们对额外暂时性收入表现出较高的消费倾向，而对未来收入的消息表现出较低的消费倾向。我们利用消费者金融调查数据记录了此类家庭的存在。针对2001年税收返还事件参数化的模型版本，得出的财政刺激支付消费反应与证据一致，且比标准的“单一资产”框架下的反应大一个数量级。模型关于返还规模、其逐步退出程度以及总体经济状况的非线性特征对政策设计具有启示意义。
Abstract
A wide body of empirical evidence finds that around 25 percent of fiscal stimulus payments (e.g., tax rebates) are spent on nondurable household consumption in the quarter that they are received.To interpret this fact, we develop a structural economic model where households can hold two assets: a low-return liquid asset (e.g., cash, checking account) and a high-return illiquid asset that carries a transaction cost (e.g., housing, retirement account).The optimal life-cycle pattern of portfolio choice implies that many households in the model are "wealthy hand-to-mouth": they hold little or no liquid wealth despite owning sizeable quantities of illiquid assets.They therefore display large propensities to consume out of additional transitory income, and small propensities to consume out of news about future income.We document the existence of such households in data from the Survey of Consumer Finances.A version of the model parameterized to the 2001 tax rebate episode yields consumption responses to fiscal stimulus payments that are in line with the evidence, and an order of magnitude larger than in the standard "one-asset" framework.The model's nonlinearities with respect to the size of the rebate, its degree of phasing-out, and aggregate economic conditions have implications for policy design.