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Working Paper
Has COVID Changed Consumer Payment Behavior?
Greene, Claire; Merry, Ellen A.; Stavins, Joanna (2021-10-01)
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused large changes in consumer spending, including how people make their payments. We use data from a nationally representative survey of U.S. consumers collected before COVID in 2018 and 2019 and during COVID in 2020 to analyze changes in consumer payment behavior during the pandemic. We find that compared with their payment behavior in 2019, consumers had shifted some of their purchases from in person to online by fall 2020, significantly lowered their use of cash for purchases, and shifted their person-to-person (P2P) payments away from paper (cash and checks). ...
Working Papers , Paper 21-12

Working Paper
The Credit Card Spending Channel of Monetary Policy: Micro Evidence from Account-level Data
Bräuning, Falk; Stavins, Joanna (2025-09-01)
Monetary policy impacts consumer spending via the effect of interest rate changes on credit card borrowing. Using supervisory account-level spending and balance data, we estimate that a 1 percentage point increase in the interest rate reduces credit card spending by nearly 9 percent and revolving balances by close to 4 percent. Aggregate results are primarily driven by revolving accounts, while we estimate small and statistically insignificant interest-rate elasticity for transaction accounts. Consistent with financial constraints, low-credit-score accounts tend to adjust spending, while ...
Working Papers , Paper 25-10

Report
Barriers to household risk management: evidence from India
Cole, Shawn; Gine, Xavier; Tobacman, Jeremy; Vickery, James; Townsend, Robert M.; Topalova, Petia (2009-05-01)
Financial engineering offers the potential to significantly reduce the consumption fluctuations faced by individuals, households, and firms. Yet much of this potential remains unfulfilled. This paper studies the adoption of an innovative rainfall insurance product designed to compensate low-income Indian farmers in the event of insufficient rainfall during the primary monsoon season. We first document relatively low adoption of this new risk management product: Only 5-10 percent of households purchase the insurance, even though they overwhelmingly cite rainfall variability as their most ...
Staff Reports , Paper 373

Journal Article
Asset Holdings of Young Households: Trends and Patterns
Thomas, Logan; Merry, Ellen A. (2014)
The authors use multiple waves of the triennial Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) from 1989 to 2013 to examine the composition of the asset portfolios of young households whose head of household is between 18 and 41 years of age. The focus is on households? decisions to hold different types of assets, including both financial assets (e.g., bank accounts, stocks, and retirement accounts) and nonfinancial assets (e.g., residential real estate, businesses, and automobiles). The authors describe the patterns of acquisition of broad asset categories in the early part of the life cycle with ...
Review , Volume 96 , Issue 4 , Pages 391-411

Report
Determinants of mortgage default and consumer credit use: the effects of foreclosure laws and foreclosure delays
Chan, Sewin; Haughwout, Andrew F.; Hayashi, Andrew; Van der Klaauw, Wilbert (2015-06-01)
The mortgage default decision is part of a complex household credit management problem. We examine how factors affecting mortgage default spill over to other credit markets. As home equity turns negative, homeowners default on mortgages and HELOCs at higher rates, whereas they prioritize repaying credit cards and auto loans. Larger unused credit card limits intensify the preservation of credit cards over housing debt. Although mortgage non-recourse statutes increase default on all types of housing debt, they reduce credit card defaults. Foreclosure delays increase default rates for both ...
Staff Reports , Paper 732

Journal Article
Federal Reserve personal financial education initiatives
Hoffmann, Joy; Fox, Lynn (2004-10)
Recognizing the importance of successful personal financial management to individuals and the broader economy, the Federal Reserve System has in the past two years intensified its efforts to provide and promote personal financial education. Initiatives have ranged from a public outreach effort highlighting the importance of financial education, to local and regional Reserve Bank programs targeted to specific audiences, to new educational seminars for employees. Staff members have studied the effectiveness of different types of education programs for different groups, and the System has worked ...
Federal Reserve Bulletin , Volume 90 , Issue Aut

Working Paper
Effects of credit scores on consumer payment choice
Stavins, Joanna; Hayashi, Fumiko (2012)
Anecdotally, a negative relationship between the use of debit cards and credit scores has been reported: Consumers with lower credit scores use debit cards more intensively than those with higher credit scores. However, it is not clear whether credit scores have real effects on consumer payment choice or whether the negative relationship is caused by other factors, such as education or income. ; If credit scores have real effects, a negative relationship between debit card use and credit scores could imply supply-side effects, demand-side effects, or a combination of both. If credit scores ...
Research Working Paper , Paper RWP 12-03

Discussion Paper
“Excess Savings” Are Not Excessive
Eggertsson, Gauti B.; Tambalotti, Andrea; Bilbiie, Florin; Primiceri, Giorgio E. (2021-04-05)
How will the U.S. economy emerge from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic? Will it struggle to return to prior levels of employment and activity, or will it come roaring back as soon as vaccinations are widespread and Americans feel comfortable travelling and eating out? Part of the answer to these questions hinges on what will happen to the large amount of “excess savings” that U.S. households have accumulated since last March. According to most estimates, these savings are around $1.6 trillion and counting. Some economists have expressed the concern that, if a considerable fraction of these ...
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20210405a

Discussion Paper
Who Are the Federal Student Loan Borrowers and Who Benefits from Forgiveness?
Goss, Jacob; Mangrum, Daniel; Scally, Joelle (2022-04-21)
The pandemic forbearance for federal student loans was recently extended for a sixth time—marking a historic thirty-month pause on federal student loan payments. The first post in this series uses survey data to help us understand which borrowers are likely to struggle when the pandemic forbearance ends. The results from this survey and the experience of some federal borrowers who did not receive forbearance during the pandemic suggest that delinquencies could surpass pre-pandemic levels after forbearance ends. These concerns have revived debates over the possibility of blanket forgiveness ...
Liberty Street Economics , Paper 20220421b

Report
The 2011 and 2012 Surveys of Consumer Payment Choice: Technical Appendix
Angrisani, Marco; Foster, Kevin; Hitczenko, Marcin (2014-10-01)
This document serves as the technical appendix to the 2011 and 2012 Surveys of Consumer Payment Choice. The Survey of Consumer Payment Choice (SCPC) is an annual study designed primarily to study the evolving attitudes to and use of various payment instruments by consumers over the age of 18 in the United States. The main report, which introduces the survey and discusses the principal economic results, can be found here. In this data report, we detail the technical aspects of the survey design, implementation, and analysis.
Consumer Payments Research Data Reports , Paper 2014-02

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