Proceedings of the Conference on Human and Economic Resources

We estimate the amount of income and consumption smoothing (risk sharing) between countries in the European Monetary Union (EMU) and between other developed countries during the period 1970–2003. In particular, we examine if EMU countries display different patterns of risk sharing than other developed countries in the period leading up to and following the formation of the EMU in 1999. We find that income smoothing from international factor income has increased in the EMU since the introduction of the EMU and that consumption smoothing from procyclical government saving has declined steeply in the EMU since the signing of the Maastricht treaty.EMU, Risk Sharing, economic determinants of risk sharing

FU.S. banking deregulation, small businesses, and interstate insurance of personal income

We estimate the effects of deregulation of U.S. banking restrictions on the amount of interstate personal income insurance during the period 1970–2001. Interstate income insurance occurs when personal income reacts less than one-to-one to state-specific shocks to output. We find that income insurance improved after banking deregulation, and that this effect is larger in states where small businesses are more important. We further show that the impact of deregulation is stronger for proprietors’ income than other components of personal income. Our explanation of this result centers on the role of banks as a prime source of small business finance and on the close intertwining of the personal and business finances of small business owners. Our analysis casts light on the real effects of bank deregulation, on the risk sharing function of banks, and on the integration of bank markets.Financial deregulation, integration of bank markets, interstate risk sharing, small business finance.

What Can Explain Excess Smoothness and Sensitivity of State-Level Consumption?

This article estimates marginal propensities to consume (MPC) out of current and lagged income for U.S. states using panel data regressions that control for time-specific and state-level fixed effects. The MPCs vary across states, in particular, the MPC out of current income is higher in states where income is more persistent and the MPC out of lagged income is lower in agricultural states. Several models of individual consumer behavior are analyzed and simulated in order to isolate a model which is able to match the estimated MPCs well.Permanent Income, Credit Rationing, Precautionary saving, Time-Aggregation, Durable Goods, Risk Sharing.

U.S. Banking Deregulation, Small Businesses,and Interstate Insurance of Personal Income

We estimate the effects of deregulation of U.S. banking restrictions on the amount of interstate personal income insurance during the period 1970–2001. Interstate income insurance occurs when personal income reacts less than one-to-one to state-specific shocks to output. We find that income insurance improved after banking deregulation, and that this effect is larger in states where small businesses are more important. We further show that the impact of deregulation is stronger for proprietors’ income than other components of personal income. Our explanation of this result centers on the role of banks as a prime source of small business finance and on the close intertwining of the personal and business finances of small business owners. Our analysis casts light on the real effects of bank deregulation, on the insurance function of banks, and on the integration of bank markets.Financial deregulation, integration of bank markets, interstate risk shar-ing, small business finance.

Deep Financial Integration and Volatility

We investigate the relationship between financial integration and output volatility at micro and macro levels. Using a very large firm-level dataset (AMADEUS) from 16 European countries, we construct a measure of "deep" financial integration at the regional level based on observations of foreign ownership at the firm-level. We find a significant positive effect of foreign ownership on the volatility of firms' outcomes in static as well as dynamic empirical frameworks. This effect survives aggregation and carries over to regional output, leading to a positive association between deep financial integration and aggregate fluctuations. To identify the causal effect of financial integration on volatility we exploit variation in the transposition dates of the European Union-wide legislative acts from the Financial Services Action Plan (FSAP). We find that high trust regions located in countries who harmonized their capital markets sooner have increased levels of financial integration and volatility.firm volatility, foreign ownership, regional integration, social capital, macro volatility

The Rise and Fall of Consumption in the '00s

U.S. consumption has gone through steep ups and downs since 2000, but the causes of these fluctuations are still imperfectly identified. We quantify the relative statistical impact of income, unemployment, house prices, credit scores, debt, expectations, foreclosures, inequality, and refinancings on consumption growth for four subperiods: the "dot-com recession" (2001-2003), the "subprime boom" (2004-2006), the Great Recession (2007-2009), and the "tepid recovery" (2010-2012). We document that the explanatory power of different factors varies by subperiods, implying that a successful modeling of this entire decade needs to allow for multiple determinants of consumption. Unemployment, income, and debt are important determinants of consumption during all four periods