Save & Invest

The Community Development Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (FRBSF) commissioned this study to explore the feasibility of passing a financial education mandate in California. Specifically, we sought to understand the key barriers related to passing a mandate in California and to identify strategies to implement financial education in the current environment, despite the absence of a state mandate.

Financial literacy — the ability to use knowledge and skills to manage financial resources effectively for a lifetime of financial well-being — is becoming more and more important as individuals and families become increasingly responsible for their own long-term financial well-being. Financial and economic literacy education programs have been shown to increase financial literacy and capability. Many federal agencies and departments have long-standing financial education programs, and, in recent years, steps have been taken to increase coordination of such efforts.

Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this paper examines how households’ home equity extraction during the previous decade affected their spending and saving behavior. The study makes use of recently released 2009 housing and wealth data as well as the extensive data on household expenditures and balance sheets that are available starting in 1999. The results show that during the height of the house-price boom (the 2003–2005 period) a one-dollar increase in equity extraction led to 14 cents higher household expenditures.

Abstract: The downturn in economic activity in the U.S. that began in December 2007 (as determined by researchers with the National Bureau of Economic Research) has been noticeably deeper and has already lasted considerably longer than the prior two recessions--those beginning in July 1990 and in March 2001.

Since its enactment in 1975, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) requires most mortgage lenders located in metropolitan areas to collect data about their housing-related lending activity, report the data annually to the government, and make the data publicly available. The information is collected annually from mortgage lenders by the Federal Financial Institution Examination Council (FFIEC). In 2011, over 16.3 million loan records for calendar year 2010 were reported by 7,923 institutions, including all of the nation’s large mortgage lenders.

In January 2009, the FDIC sponsored a special supplement to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) to collect data to determine the number of U.S. households that lack a deposit account with a financial institution (checking or savings account) and reasons for not having/using a bank account.

Abstract: This report examines the utilization of a state earned income credit by current and former welfare recipients using two measures: receipt among all current and former welfare recipients and among only those eligible for the credit. Both measures may be useful, depending upon which groups policymakers hope to target.

Abstract: Only about one-fifth of respondents in the Reuters/University of Michigan survey report that the 2008 tax rebates led them to mostly increase spending, while over half said it would lead them to mostly pay off debt. Of those in the mostly-spend category, the response was swift, with over 80 percent reporting increasing their spending within three months of receiving their rebate. Older households, households with higher wealth and higher income, and those expecting future income growth were generally more likely to spend the rebates.

Abstract: Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we document that, controlling for observable characteristics, household investors' likelihood of entering the stock market within the next five years is about 30 percent higher if their parents or children had entered the stock market during the previous five years.

This paper describes an equilibrium life-cycle model of housing where nonconvex adjustment costs lead households to adjust their housing choice infrequently and by large amounts when they do so. In the cross-sectional dimension, the model matches the wealth distribution; the age profiles of consumption, homeownership, and mortgage debt; and data on the frequency of housing adjustment. In the time-series dimension, the model accounts for the procyclicality and volatility of housing investment, and for the procyclical behavior of household debt.