A Raise for Grandma: Pensions and Household Expenditure*
利用西班牙1980-1990年代养老金改革数据，发现养老金对家庭消费有显著但小于1的边际消费倾向，高收入高财富养老金领取者消费反应更大，预防性储蓄和耐用品调整成本可解释消费平滑性。
Abstract This paper analyses the causal effect of changes in public pensions on household spending. The identification exploits the introduction of a new welfare system in Spain during the 1980s and 1990s, and uses a novel narrative series of legislated pension changes as an instrument for pension income. Despite public pensions having a limited impact in the aggregate, I find a high, though less than unity, marginal propensity to consume for pensioners due to permanent income shocks at the household level. Moreover, large spending responses for pensioners with the highest income and wealth mean that liquidity considerations can be disregarded as a key source of marginal propensity to consume heterogeneity. Instead, a strong precautionary savings motive can explain the excess smoothness of consumption, and costly adjustments explain the skewed spending response for durables.