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About the Author(s)

Shapiro

Matthew D. Shapiro is a research associate in the Monetary Economics, Economic Fluctuations and Growth, and Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Programs of the NBER. At the University of Michigan, he is the Lawrence R. Klein Collegiate Professor of Economics and a research professor in the Survey Research Center. He is editor of the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy.

Shapiro graduated from Yale University in 1979 and received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1984. Among his current research interests are modeling saving, retirement, health, insurance, and portfolio choices of older Americans; using surveys to address questions in macroeconomics and individual decision-making; modeling how changes in tax policy affect consumption, investment, employment, and output; improving the quality of national economic statistics; and using naturally occurring data such as account records and social media to measure and understand economic activity.

Shapiro is the chair of the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee, which is the official advisory committee of the Bureau of the Census, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. He is also a member of the Academic Advisory Panel of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

He is married to Dr. Susan L. Garetz, who is a professor of otolaryngology and neurology at the University of Michigan. They have two children.

Endnotes

1. M. Gelman, S. Kariv, M. D. Shapiro, D. Silverman, and S. Tadelis, "Harnessing Naturally Occurring Data to Measure the Response of Spending to Income," Science, 345(6193), 2014, pp. 212–15.   Go to ⤴︎
2. See, for example, M. Stephens, "'3rd of the Month': Do Social Security Recipients Smooth Consumption Between Checks?" NBER Working Paper 9135, August 2002, and American Economic Review, 93(1), 2003, pp. 406–22.   Go to ⤴︎
3. M. Gelman, S. Kariv, M. D. Shapiro, D. Silverman, and S. Tadelis, "How Individuals Smooth Spending: Evidence from the 2013 Government Shutdown Using Account Data," NBER Working Paper 21025, March 2015. Go to ⤴︎
4. R. Triffin, M. D. Shapiro and J. Slemrod, "Consumer Response to the Timing of Income: Evidence from a Change in Tax Withholding," NBER Working Paper 4344, April 1993, and American Economic Review, 85(1), 1995, pp. 274–83; M. D. Shapiro and J. Slemrod, "Consumer Response to Tax Rebates," NBER Working Paper 8672, December 2001 and American Economic Review, 93, 2003, pp. 381–96; M. D. Shapiro and J. Slemrod, "Did the 2008 Tax Rebates Stimulate Spending?" NBER Working Paper 14753, February 2009, and American Economic Review, 99(2), 2009, pp. 374–9; and C. R. Sahm, M. D. Shapiro, and J. Slemrod, "Check in the Mail or More in the Paycheck: Does the Effectiveness of Fiscal Stimulus Depend on How It Is Delivered?" NBER Working Paper 16246, July 2010 and American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 4(3), 2012, pp. 216–50. The estimates across policies are quite similar except for the 1992 change in withholding (which had a higher mostly spend rate than the subsequent policies).   Go to ⤴︎
5. Congressional Budget Office, "Options for Responding to Short-Term Economic Weakness," Washington, D.C.: The Congressional Budget Office, 2008. For a point estimate of the MPC more in line with standard assumptions, see J. A. Parker, N. S. Souleles, D. S. Johnson, and R. McClelland, "Consumer Spending and the Economic Stimulus Payments of 2008," NBER Working Paper 16684, January 2011 and American Economic Review, 106(6), 2013, pp. 2530–53.   Go to ⤴︎
6. The finding that the MPC is not a function of the level of income, however, is consistent with recent work by Greg Kaplan and Giovanni Violante: G. Kaplan and G. Violante, "A Model of the Consumption Response to Fiscal Stimulus Payments," NBER Working Paper 17338, August 2011, and Econometrica, 82(4), 2014, pp. 1199–1239.   Go to ⤴︎
7. C. R. Sahm, M. D. Shapiro, and J. Slemrod, "Balance-Sheet Households and Fiscal Stimulus: Lessons from the Payroll Tax Cut and Its Expiration," NBER Working Paper 21220, May 2015. Go to ⤴︎

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