Brazil initiated a major credit expansion program through government banks in 2011. The program primarily targeted public sector workers with offers of payroll-backed loans. Using individual-level administrative data we find that the program led to a 15 percentage point rise in debt to initial income for public sector workers. We develop a new method for estimating workers' expected income growth, and show that “consumption smoothing” cannot explain the rise in consumer borrowing. Instead, the evidence supports “consumption binging”: less financially sophisticated workers borrowed more at high real interest rates, and experienced both higher consumption volatility and lower average consumption.

中文翻译：

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平滑消费还是暴饮暴食？巴西政府主导的消费信贷扩张的影响

巴西于 2011 年通过政府银行启动了一项重大信贷扩张计划。该计划主要针对公共部门工人，提供工资支持贷款。使用个人层面的行政数据，我们发现该计划导致公共部门工作人员的债务与初始收入之比上升了 15 个百分点。我们开发了一种估计工人预期收入增长的新方法，并表明“消费平滑”不能解释消费借贷的增加。相反，证据支持“消费狂潮”：财务能力较差的工人以高实际利率借入更多资金，并经历了更高的消费波动和更低的平均消费。