Academic researchers borrowed user data from mobile billpay and account management innovator, Check, to learn the exact impact of the government shutdown on consumer spending.
Based at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, users were sampled anonymously for eleven months from December 2012 through October 2013. Researchers were able to confirm, via the Check data, that the shutdown impacted consumer spending nationally (5% drop in the last 10 days of September), but that government workers cut spending the most (15% over the same period).
“For the first time, we are able to accurately report the impact at national and local levels – and for government workers as a group – thanks to real-time data provided by Check,” said Steven Tadelis, associate professor of the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
More than 50.000 Check users nationwide were included in the data set. More than 3,000 of these users lived in Washington, D.C., Maryland, or Virginia.
Check demoed its mobile billpay and account management technology (as Pageonce) for the FinovateFall 2010 show in New York.