Spend or Invest? Analyzing MPC Heterogeneity Across Three Stimulus Programs

I utilize granular transaction data gathered by an account aggregator to examine howpersonal circumstances influence cross-sectional and within-person variation in the marginal propensity to consume, repay debt, and invest across the three pandemic stimulus programs in the U.S. Using a novel Machine Learning imputation estimator, I measure the sensitivity of responses to time-varying financial circumstances. I demonstrate the role of liquidity constraints and debt positions in driving the within-person changes in spending responses over time.

Jan Toczynski is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Queen Mary University of London. Jan graduated from the Swiss Finance Institute PhD program in Finance at the University of Zurich. He is interested in household finance, fintech, and empirical banking. His most recent work analyzes large-scale transaction data from a personal finance app to answer questions about households' consumption sensitivity, debt repayment behavior, and investments, particularly in cryptocurrencies.