IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejmac/v16y2024i3p343-88.html

MPC Heterogeneity and the Dynamic Response of Consumption to Monetary Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Miguel Ampudia
  • Russell Cooper
  • Julia Le Blanc
  • Guozhong Zhu

Abstract

This paper studies how household financial choices affect the impact of monetary policy on consumption. Based on micro data from four major euro area countries, we estimate key structural parameters using a simulated method of moments approach to match moments related to asset market participation rates, portfolio shares, and wealth-to-income ratios by education and country. The country-specific distributions of marginal propensities to consume (MPCs) out of income and financial wealth are not degenerate. Due to this MPC heterogeneity, monetary policy, operating through income and asset returns, has a differential impact on individuals within and across countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Miguel Ampudia & Russell Cooper & Julia Le Blanc & Guozhong Zhu, 2024. "MPC Heterogeneity and the Dynamic Response of Consumption to Monetary Policy," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 343-388, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmac:v:16:y:2024:i:3:p:343-88
    DOI: 10.1257/mac.20210277
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mac.20210277
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E183361V1
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mac.20210277.appx
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/mac.20210277.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/mac.20210277?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fatih Guvenen, 2009. "An Empirical Investigation of Labor Income Processes," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 12(1), pages 58-79, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. repec:osf:socarx:nxshd_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Qingyin Ma & Xinxi Song & Alexis Akira Toda, 2025. "A Theory of Saving under Risk Preference Dynamics," Papers 2511.03142, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2026.
    3. Masuda, Kazuto, 2024. "The Special Theory of Employment, Exchange Rate, and Money With the Focus on Inflation and Technological Progress," SocArXiv nxshd, Center for Open Science.
    4. Kukk, Merike & Toczynski, Jan & Basten, Christoph, 2025. "Beyond the headline: How personal exposure to inflation shapes the financial choices of households," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    5. Bertrand Garbinti & Pierre Lamarche & Fredérique Savignac, 2024. "Wealth Heterogeneity and the Marginal Propensity to Consume out of Wealth," Working Papers 2022-02, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    6. Winfried Koeniger & Peter Kress, 2024. "The Effect of Unconventional Fiscal Policy on Consumption -New Evidence based on Transactional Data," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 24-58, Swiss Finance Institute.
    7. Gao, Yawen & Li, Lun & Liang, Xin, 2025. "Measuring MPC heterogeneity in China: Insights from household registration reform," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 94(PC).
    8. Boitani, Andrea & Di Domenico, Lorenzo & Ricchiuti, Giorgio, 2026. "Monetary policy and inequality: A heterogeneous agents’ approach," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cozzi, Marco, 2023. "Public debt and welfare in a quantitative Schumpeterian growth model with incomplete markets," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    2. Chabé-Ferret, Sylvain, 2015. "Analysis of the bias of Matching and Difference-in-Difference under alternative earnings and selection processes," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 185(1), pages 110-123.
    3. Corrado Andini, 2022. "Tertiary education for all and wage inequality: policy insights from quantile regression," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 50(6), pages 1281-1296, November.
    4. Li Qian, 2020. "Dynamic effects of consumption tax reforms with durable consumption," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 20(2), pages 1-33, June.
    5. Pedro Albarran & Raquel Carrasco & Maite Martinez‐Granado, 2009. "Inequality for Wage Earners and Self‐Employed: Evidence from Panel Data," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(4), pages 491-518, August.
    6. Yavuz Arslan & Bulent Guler & Temel Taskin, 2021. "Price Search, Consumption Inequality And Expenditure Inequality Over The Life ‐Cycle," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(1), pages 295-320, February.
    7. Marios Karabarbounis, 2020. "A Life-Cycle Model with Individual Volatility Dynamics," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 4, pages 159-171.
    8. Alonso, Cristian, 2018. "Hard vs. soft financial constraints: Implications for the effects of a credit crunch," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 198-223.
    9. Ni, Xinwen, 2019. "Voting for Health Insurance Policy: the U.S. versus Europe," IRTG 1792 Discussion Papers 2019-012, Humboldt University of Berlin, International Research Training Group 1792 "High Dimensional Nonstationary Time Series".
    10. Krebs, Tom & Yao, Yao, 2016. "Labor Market Risk in Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 9869, IZA Network @ LISER.
    11. Wizan, Maisarah & Sologon, Denisa M. & Marchal, Sarah, 2025. "The Shift from Persistent Inequality to Earnings Instability in Belgium," IZA Discussion Papers 18132, IZA Network @ LISER.
    12. Maxim Troshkin & Aleh Tsyvinski & Mikhail Golosov, 2010. "Optimal Dynamic Taxes," 2010 Meeting Papers 320, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    13. repec:cam:camjip:2517 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Joanna Tyrowicz & Krzysztof Makarski & Piotr Zoch, 2025. "Demographic transition and the rise of wealth inequality," GRAPE Working Papers 101, GRAPE Group for Research in Applied Economics.
    15. Kartik Athreya & José Mustre-del-Río & Juan M Sánchez, 2019. "The Persistence of Financial Distress," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(10), pages 3851-3883.
    16. Engbom, Niklas & Moser, Christian & Sauermann, Jan, 2023. "Firm pay dynamics," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 233(2), pages 396-423.
    17. Hansen, Jörgen & Lkhagvasuren, Damba, 2015. "New Evidence on Mobility and Wages of the Young and the Old," IZA Discussion Papers 9258, IZA Network @ LISER.
    18. Voelzke, Jan & Gößling, Fabian & Diesteldorf, Jeanne & Weigt, Till, 2017. "Investors' favourite - A different look at valuing individual labour income," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168065, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    19. Masakatsu Okubo, 2015. "Earnings Dynamics and Profile Heterogeneity: Estimates from Japanese Panel Data," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 66(1), pages 112-146, March.
    20. Dmytro Hryshko, 2012. "Labor income profiles are not heterogeneous: Evidence from income growth rates," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 3(2), pages 177-209, July.
    21. Iourii Manovskii & Dmytro Hryshko & Moira Daly, 2015. "Reconciling Estimates of Earnings Processes in Growth Rates and Levels," 2015 Meeting Papers 1395, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • G51 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance - - - Household Savings, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejmac:v:16:y:2024:i:3:p:343-88. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.