Measuring Consumption with Credit Card Data: Benchmarking and Beyond
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摘要
Using the Federal Reserve’s Y-14M credit card data, this paper constructs a high-frequency, county-level consumption dataset and benchmarks it against official consumption measures, finding that credit card spending growth explains 92% of monthly adjusted PCE variation at the national level and reveals meaningful cross-state variation. As a proof of concept, the county panel uncovers heterogeneous monetary policy transmission: in lower-income counties, spending falls more than in higher-income counties, aligning with heterogeneous-agent macro models. The paper also provides practical guidance on data coverage, sample composition, and approximating card spending from credit bureau data [page::0][page::2][page::3][page::20][page::33][page::35].
