Eliciting the Marginal Propensity to Consume in Surveys

Thomas F. Crossley, Paul Fisher, Peter Levell and Hamish W. Low

No WP 2026-04, Working Paper Series from Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

Abstract: Different methods of eliciting the marginal propensity to consume give very different distributions. Mean MPCs range from below 0.1, indicating life-cycle consumers, to over 0.5, consistent with consumers being hand-to-mouth. We conducted a randomized survey experiment to test if this difference arises because of question wording: we compare using a direct question and a filtered question. Survey wording has large effects on (1) the mean MPC, (2) the extensive margin, and (3) how MPCs vary with payment size, spending horizon, and liquidity. MPCs elicited using a filtered question are much closer to results from using a covariance restriction approach.

Keywords: MPC; survey experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C83 D12 D14 E21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26
Date: 2026-03-12
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedhwp:103281

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DOI: 10.21033/wp-2026-04

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