Unintended Consequences of Unemployment Insurance Benefits: The Role of Banks
利用美国数据和边界断点设计，发现更慷慨的失业保险政策会减少家庭预防性储蓄，导致银行存款下降，进而减少对小企业的贷款，并推高失业率、压低工资增长。
We use disaggregated U.S. data and a border discontinuity design to show that more generous unemployment insurance (UI) policies lower bank deposits. We test several channels that could explain this decline and find evidence consistent with households lowering their deposit holdings due to reduced precautionary savings. Because deposits are the largest and most stable source of funding for banks, the decrease in deposits affects bank lending. Banks that raise deposits in states with generous UI policies reduce their loan supply to small businesses. Furthermore, counties that are served by these banks experience a higher unemployment rate and lower wage growth. This paper was accepted by Lukas Schmid, finance. Funding: G. Kabas acknowledges financial support from the European Research Council [ERC ADG 2016-GA 740272 lending]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.03217 .