Liquidity Constraints of the Middle Class
研究发现美国中产阶级家庭的边际消费倾向远高于持久收入假说预测，且与流动资产关系弱；通过加入为购房、教育等大额支出而储蓄的行为，标准预防性储蓄模型能更真实地模拟这些家庭的消费行为。
Existing evidence from US middle class households shows that their MPCs out of tax rebates greatly exceed the PIH’s prediction and are weakly related to their liquid assets. The standard precautionary-saving model predicts the first fact but counterfactu-ally requires MPCs to decrease with liquid wealth. Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances indicates widespread saving in anticipation of major expenditures like home purchases and college education. Adding such savings to the standard precautionary-saving model allows it to generate realistic MPCs for households with liquid wealth: the approaching expenditure simultaneously motivates asset accumulation and raises MPCs by shortening the effective planning horizon.