RA Farrokhnia and Michaela Pagel - May 27, 2020

RA Farrokhnia, Columbia Business and Engineering Schools, and Michaela Pagel, Columbia Business School, "Income, liquidity, and the consumption response to the 2020 economic stimulus payments (May 2020)" - NBER Working Paper No. 27097

Dr. Farrokhnia presented his and his colleague, Dr. Michaela Pagel, research on the analysis of consumer responses to, and spending behaviour of, stimulus checks issued by the government. The study aims at providing a policy recommendation to the government. Their findings are based on real-time, anonymous and representative self-reported data from SaverLife.org. Based on a few observables provided, after cleansing and extrapolation, up to 90 different values can be obtained. Up to this day, 25% to 35% of the checks were spent, mostly directly after receiving on elementary life goods such as rent, bills and groceries, which differs from previous crises in 2001 and 2008. Analysed were different attributes such as income levels and liquidity. This work and more can be found here: fintech.gsb.columbia.edu