Consumption Smoothing in the Working-Class Households of Interwar Japan
利用1920年代大阪工厂家庭的月度面板数据，研究发现这些家庭虽无法完全应对收入冲击，但通过储蓄、借贷和调整劳动供给缓解了必要消费的波动。
I analyze factory worker households in the early 1920s in Osaka to examine idiosyncratic income shocks and consumption. Using the household-level monthly panel dataset, I find that while households could not fully cope with idiosyncratic income shocks at that time, they mitigated fluctuations in indispensable consumption during economic hardship. In terms of risk-coping mechanisms, I find suggestive evidence that savings institutions helped mitigate vulnerabilities and that both using borrowing institutions and adjusting labor supply served as risk-coping strategies among households with less savings.