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One potential consequence of rising top‐income concentration is borrowing by less‐affluent households attempting to maintain relative living standards. This paper evaluates the “keeping up with the Joneses” phenomenon, examining the responsiveness of payment‐to‐income ratios for different debt types across the income distribution to changes in income among affluent households. The analysis provides evidence for the responsiveness of debt to rising top incomes. Middle‐ and upper‐middle‐income households take on more housing‐related debt and have higher payments in places with higher top‐income levels. Among lower‐income households non‐mortgage borrowing and debt payments decline, consistent with restrictions in the supply of credit. (JEL D63, D14) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At odds with the large literature devoted to the fiscal discipline effects of fiscal rules, only few contributions investigate their impact on public spending. Estimations based on the entropy balancing method reveal the following causal effects: fiscal rules significantly reduce total public spending and public consumption, leave public investment mostly unaffected, and increase the public investment‐to‐public consumption ratio. Moreover, the type of fiscal rule and countries' level of economic development influence the way fiscal rules affect public spending. Lastly, fiscal rules' features are a major driving force of the way governments change public spending in the presence of fiscal rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standard theoretical models predict that higher inflation expectations generate greater current consumer spending at the zero lower bound of interest rates. However, recent empirical studies using U.S. micro data find negative results for this relationship. We use micro data for Japan, which has experienced low interest rates for a prolonged period, to estimate ordered probit models with a variety of controls. We find robust evidence supporting the prediction of standard models: survey respondents with higher expected inflation tend to indicate that their household has increased real spending compared with 1 year ago but will decrease it in the future. This relationship appears to be stronger for asset holders and older people. ( JEL E20, E21, E30, E31, E50, E52) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]