Liquidity and Consumption: Evidence from Three Post-Earthquake Reconstruction Programs in Italy
利用意大利地震灾区家庭获得重建资金的时间差异，研究发现流动性增加显著提高了相对富裕家庭的消费，尤其是有银行债务的流动性受限家庭。
In Italian regions hit by earthquakes, homeowners typically receive public funds to finance reconstruction. While these funds are strictly tied to reconstruction work, they are in part disbursed up front, leading to significant variation in cash on hand. We exploit this variation to study the effects of liquidity on relatively wealthy households’ consumption. We find a large and significant response in the first year that homeowners receive the cash and provide evidence that this response is driven by illiquid households with bank debt. Instead, we find no evidence that consumption responds to funds paid directly to firms, thus leaving households’ liquidity unaffected.