Christine Dobridge is an economist in the Division of Financial Stability Policy and Research at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, where she conducts research on fiscal policy actions, household finances, and government regulation. Previously, Dr. Dobridge served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Macroeconomic Analysis and the Senior Advisor for Economic Policy at the U.S. Treasury Department during the U.S. financial crisis. She has also worked as an economist for Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. and served on the staff of the Council of Economic Advisers. She holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in economics from New York University, and a B.A. in economics from Wellesley College.
I provide empirical evidence that the effect of high-cost credit access on household material well-being depends on if a household is experiencing temporary financial distress. Using detailed data on household consumption and location, as well as geographic variation in access to high-cost payday loans over time, I find that payday credit access improves well-being for households in distress by helping them smooth consumption. In periods of temporary financial distress—after extreme weather events like hurricanes and blizzards—I find that payday loan access mitigates declines in spending on food, mortgage payments, and home repairs. In an average period, however, I find that access to payday credit reduces well-being. Loan access reduces spending on nondurable goods overall and reduces housing- and food-related spending particularly. These results highlight the state-dependent nature of the effects of high-cost credit as well as the consumption-smoothing role that it plays for households with limited access to other forms of credit.
Joshua D. Rauh is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He formerly taught at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and the Kellogg School of Management.
Rauh studies public pension liabilities, corporate investment, and the financial decisions of pension funds and their sponsors. He has published numerous journal articles and was awarded the 2006 Brattle Prize for the outstanding research paper on corporate finance published in the Journal of Finance for his paper “Investment and Financing Constraints: Evidence from the Funding of Corporate Pension Plans.” In 2011 he won the Smith Breeden Prize for the outstanding research paper on capital markets, published in the Journal of Finance, for his paper “Public Pension Promises: How Big Are They and What Are they Worth?” coauthored with Robert Novy-Marx. His other writings include “Earnings Manipulation, Pension Assumptions and Managerial Investment Decisions,” coauthored with Daniel Bergstresser and Mihir Desai, which won the Barclays Global Investor Best Symposium Paper from the European Finance Association and appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Other work has appeared in the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Financial Economics, and the Review of Finance.
Rauh’s research on state and local pension systems in the United States has received national media coverage in outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Financial Times, and The Economist.
Rauh received a BA degree in economics, magna cum laude with distinction, from Yale University and a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Jeff Larrimore is a Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in the Division of Consumer and Community Affairs. His primary research interests involve issues of economic inequality, including economic outcomes for lower income individuals, factors contributing to income inequality growth over time, and techniques for measuring inequality. He also oversees the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, which tracks the financial well-being of U.S. families with an emphasis on those lower in the income distribution. Prior to joining the Federal Reserve Board, Jeff worked for the Joint Committee on Taxation of the US Congress and has taught as an adjunct professor for both Georgetown University and the University of Maryland. He received a Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University and a B.A. in economics and political science from Davidson College.
J. Mark Iwry (pronounced “Eevry”) is Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury and is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Retirement and Health Policy at the U.S. Treasury Department. In these capacities, his portfolio includes pension, retirement, and savings policy, implementation of the Affordable Care Act, other health care, employee benefits, and compensation issues, and related policy, legislative, rulemaking, and regulatory responsibilities.
Mark has previously been a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Research Professor at Georgetown University, a partner in the law firm of Covington & Burling, Of Counsel to the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, the Treasury Department’s Benefits Tax Counsel, and a Principal of the nonpartisan Retirement Security Project.
Mark has often testified before Congress – representing Treasury and the Executive Branch or, while in the private sector, testifying as an independent expert — and State legislatures. He has provided policy advice to numerous Senators, Members of Congress and staff on both sides of the aisle and five Presidential campaigns. His books and articles include the co-edited volumes (with William Gale and Peter Orszag), Aging Gracefully: Ideas to Improve Retirement Security in America and Automatic: Changing the Way America Saves (with W. Gale, D. John, L. Walker).
In recent years he has been recognized as one of the “30 top financial players” (Smart Money magazine), “Investment News 20” (20 individuals expected to have a major influence on the financial services industry), “100 most influential people in finance” (Treasury and Risk), “50 most influential people in aging” (Next Avenue), 40 most influential people in pensions (Institutional Investor), number 3 among the “100 most influential people in 401(k)” (401(k) Wire), 25 most influential government officials affecting retirement plans (NAPA Net), etc. Among other awards, he has received the Retirement Income Industry Association award for innovation in retirement income products, the Government Partner Award of the American Payroll Association, an award for outstanding contributions to retirement security from the Pension Rights Center, and, for his previous service at Treasury, Treasury’s Exceptional Service Award “[i]n recognition of his outstanding leadership and accomplishments ….Widely respected as Treasury’s benefits and pension expert, Mr. Iwry excelled at building coalitions of diverse interests….”
A principal architect of the Saver’s Credit to expand 401(k) and IRA coverage of middle- and lower-income workers (claimed annually on some 8 million tax returns) and the “SIMPLE” IRA plan (covering an estimated 3 to 4 million workers), Mark also co-authored President Obama’s legislative proposal to achieve a breakthrough in coverage through automatic enrollment in IRAs, and played a central role in initiating and designing the nationwide state-based initiative to adopt the automatic IRA and other retirement savings programs through legislation at the state level. In the 1990s, he formulated and directed Treasury’s strategy to increase saving by defining, approving and promoting 401(k) automatic enrollment (and automatic rollover to curtail pension leakage). He also has been centrally involved in developing or orchestrating other expansions, simplifications, and improvements of the nation’s pension and benefits systems, law, and regulatory framework, including the payroll deduction IRA, the “myRA”, expansion of automatic 401(k) features, promoting lifetime income in retirement plans, IRS direct deposit of tax refunds into IRAs and US saving bonds, and the small business startup tax credit for new plans.
Mark is an honors graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, earned a Masters degree in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School, and is a member of the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Damon Jones is an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago, Harris School of Public Policy. He is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He completed his Ph.D. in economics at the University of California, Berkeley in 2009. Prior to joining Chicago Harris, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. His work focuses on public economics, income taxation, household finance, and behavioral economics.
We conduct a field experiment designed to test theories of time-inconsistency, namely a “Beta-Delta” model of present bias. The experiment takes place in the context of a saving decision made by low-income tax filers who can deposit their income tax refund into an illiquid account. We find qualitative evidence consistent with present-biased preferences. The tradeoff between an earlier payment or a later one is much more skewed toward taking the early payment when the decision is made on the spot than when the decision is made in advance. We estimate a and of 0.34 and 1.08 over an 8-month horizon, respectively, which translates into an annual discount rate of 164%.
Janet Bodnar is Editor of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine. Over her career at Kiplinger, Bodnar has written about a wide range of topics on investing, money management and the economy. During her tenure as Editor since 2009, Kiplinger’s has twice been honored for general excellence by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.
Bodnar is a nationally recognized expert in the field of children’s and family finances, financial literacy, and women and money. She is the author of Money Smart Women: Everything You Need to Know to Achieve a Lifetime of Financial Security (Kaplan). Praising Money Smart Women, Time magazine noted that Bodnar “avoids the patronizing finger-wagging and sticks to giving advice that women can really use.” She writes Kiplinger’s “Money Smart Women” column and speaks frequently on the subject of women’s finances.
Bodnar is also the author of Raising Money Smart Kids (Kaplan), which was a finalist in the personal finance category of the Books for a Better Life awards, honoring the best self-improvement books. It was also a selection of the Washington Post’s Color of Money book club. Her “Money-Smart Kids” column appears regularly at www.kiplinger.com/columns/kids.
Bodnar has appeared on Oprah, Today, Good Morning America, The Early Show on CBS, Fox, CNBC, CNN and PBS. She has done hundreds of radio and TV interviews, and is a weekly contributor to WTOP, the major all-news radio station in Washington, D.C. She is a popular speaker, and has been quoted in publications ranging from The Wall Street Journal and Institutional Investor to Parents and Glamour.
Bodnar has been recognized by American University for excellence in personal finance reporting, and by the National Council on Family Relations for her televised reports on children and money. The audio version of her book (read by the author) received three “best of” awards, from Publishers Weekly (business category), Library Journal (nonfiction) and the Audio Publishers Association (educational category).
Prior to joining Kiplinger’s, Bodnar worked for The Providence Journal and The Washington Post. She is a graduate of St. Bonaventure University, and is a member of the school’s Board of Trustees. She received her master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, where she was also a Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Business and Economics Journalism.
Married, she is the mother of three children. Follow her tweets at www.twitter.com/janetbodnar.
Jared Bernstein joined the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in May 2011 as a Senior Fellow. From 2009 to 2011, Bernstein was the Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, executive director of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class, and a member of President Obama’s economic team.
Bernstein’s areas of expertise include federal and state economic and fiscal policies, income inequality and mobility, trends in employment and earnings, international comparisons, and the analysis of financial and housing markets.
Prior to joining the Obama administration, Bernstein was a senior economist and the director of the Living Standards Program at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.
Between 1995 and 1996, he held the post of deputy chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor.
He is the author and coauthor of numerous books for both popular and academic audiences, including “Getting Back to Full Employment: A Better Bargain for Working People,” “Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed?,” nine editions of “The State of Working America,” and his latest book “The Reconnection Agenda: Reuniting Growth and Prosperity.” Bernstein has published extensively in various venues, including The New York Times, Washington Post, and the Financial Times. He is an on-air commentator for the cable stations CNBC and MSNBC, contributes to The New York Times’ Upshot blog and The Washington Post’s PostEverything blog, and hosts jaredbernsteinblog.com.
Bernstein holds a PhD in Social Welfare from Columbia University.
Jason J. Fichtner is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. His research focuses on Social Security, federal tax policy, federal budget policy, retirement security, and policy proposals to increase saving and investment.
Previously, he served in several positions at the Social Security Administration, including as deputy commissioner of Social Security (acting), chief economist, and associate commissioner for retirement policy. He also served as senior economist with the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress.
His work has been featured in the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Investor’s Business Daily, the Los Angeles Times, the Atlantic, and USA Today, as well as on broadcasts by PBS, NBC, and NPR.
He also serves as an adjunct professor at the Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy, the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and the Virginia Tech Center for Public Administration and Policy, where he teaches courses in economics, public finance, public policy process, public management, and public budgeting processes.
Fichtner earned his BA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; his MPP from Georgetown University; and his PhD in public administration and policy from Virginia Tech.
Fichtner is the author of “The Hidden Cost of Federal Tax Policy” and the editor of “The Economics of Medicaid.”
Clinton Key is the research officer for savings and financial security at The Pew Charitable Trusts. The project conducts original research that explores when, how, and how much American households save, examines how savings are used for financial security, and evaluates the potential of programs and policies to improve the financial situation of Americans. In leading this research portfolio, Key develops and implements rigorous data collection and analysis strategies to create a better understanding of household saving behavior and the role of savings in people’s lives. As a primary spokesman for the project, he presents findings to diverse audiences, including policymakers, across the country.
Previously, Key was the research director for the asset-building program at the University of North Carolina’s School of Social Work and a consultant for the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis. He designed field experiments and statistical investigations into the saving and consumption habits of American households and evaluated the effectiveness of programs designed to help families build savings and assets. He spoke and wrote about savings, household balance sheets, and research methods for a variety of audiences.
Key holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago and a master’s degree from the University of North Carolina.
Caroline Ratcliffe is a senior fellow and economist at the Urban Institute. An expert in the asset building and poverty fields, she has published and spoken extensively on the role of emergency savings, poverty, consumer use of alternative financial sector products, and welfare programs and policies. Ratcliffe testified before the US House Committee on Agriculture and the District of Columbia’s City Council on implications of persistent child poverty. She also provided testimony to the US Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee on closing the racial wealth gap. Her research has been published in academic journals and cited in elite media outlets, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the Economist. Ratcliffe held previous positions at the Congressional Budget Office and Brookings Institution, and as a visiting associate professor at Georgetown University. She holds a PhD in economics from Cornell University.
George Washington University School of Business
Duquès Hall, Room 651
George Washington University School of Business
Duquès Hall (Room TBD)
George Washington University School of Business
Duquès Hall, Room 451
George Washington University
Science and Engineering Hall, Room B1270
George Washington University School of Business
Duquès Hall, Room 451
George Washington University
Science and Engineering Hall, Room B1270