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Household Expenditure and the Income Tax Rebates of 2001

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Author Info
David S. Johnson (Division of Price and Index Number Research, Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Jonathan A. Parker (Princeton University)
Nicholas S. Souleles (Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania)

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Abstract

Under the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, most U.S. taxpayers received a tax rebate between July and September, 2001. The week in which the rebate was mailed was based on the second-to-last digit of the taxpayer's Social Security number, a digit that is effectively randomly assigned. Using special questions about the rebates added to the Consumer Expenditure Survey, we exploit this historically unique experiment to measure the change in consumption expenditures caused by receipt of the rebate and to test the Permanent Income Hypothesis and related models. We find that households spent about 20-40 percent of their rebates on non-durable goods during the three-month period in which their rebates were received, and roughly another third of their rebates during the subsequent three-month period. The implied effects on aggregate consumption demand are significant. The estimated responses are largest for households with relatively low liquid wealth and low income, consistent with liquidity constraints.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Discussion Papers in Economics. in its series Working Papers with number 136.

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Date of creation: Aug 2004
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Handle: RePEc:pri:wwseco:136

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Keywords: consumption saving Life-Cycle model Permanent-Income Hypothesis liquidity constraints fiscal policy tax cuts tax rebates windfalls

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy
H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Sumit Agarwal & Chunlin Liu & Nicholas S. Souleles, 2007. "The reaction of consumer spending and debt to tax rebates – evidence from consumer credit data," Working Paper Series WP-07-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Ricardo Reis, 2004. "Inattentive Consumers," NBER Working Papers 10883, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Jappelli, Tullio, 1990. "Who Is Credit Constrained in the U.S. Economy?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 105(1), pages 219-34, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Hall, Robert E, 1978. "Stochastic Implications of the Life Cycle-Permanent Income Hypothesis: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(6), pages 971-87, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Jonathan A. Parker, 1999. "The Reaction of Household Consumption to Predictable Changes in Social Security Taxes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 959-973, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Zeldes, Stephen P, 1989. "Optimal Consumption with Stochastic Income: Deviations from Certainty Equivalence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 104(2), pages 275-98, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Nicholas S. Souleles, 1999. "The Response of Household Consumption to Income Tax Refunds," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 947-958, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Matthew D. Shapiro & Joel Slemrod, 2003. "Consumer Response to Tax Rebates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 381-396, March. [Downloadable!]
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  9. Christopher D. Carroll, 1992. "The Buffer-Stock Theory of Saving: Some Macroeconomic Evidence," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 23(1992-2), pages 61-156. [Downloadable!]
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  14. Wilcox, David W, 1989. "Social Security Benefits, Consumption Expenditure, and the Life Cycle Hypothesis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(2), pages 288-304, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Zeldes, Stephen P, 1989. "Consumption and Liquidity Constraints: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(2), pages 305-46, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  16. Caballero, Ricardo J, 1995. "Near-Rationality, Heterogeneity, and Aggregate Consumption," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(1), pages 29-48, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Shapiro, Matthew D & Slemrod, Joel, 1995. "Consumer Response to the Timing of Income: Evidence from a Change in Tax Withholding," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 274-83, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  18. Lusardi, Annamaria, 1996. "Permanent Income, Current Income, and Consumption: Evidence from Two Panel Data Sets," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 14(1), pages 81-90, January.
  19. Souleles, Nicholas S., 2002. "Consumer response to the Reagan tax cuts," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 99-120, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Chang-Tai Hsieh, 2003. "Do Consumers React to Anticipated Income Changes? Evidence from the Alaska Permanent Fund," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 397-405, March. [Downloadable!]
  21. Blinder, Alan S, 1981. "Temporary Income Taxes and Consumer Spending," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(1), pages 26-53, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  22. Poterba, James M, 1988. "Are Consumers Forward Looking? Evidence from Fiscal Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 413-18, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  23. David B. Gross & Nicholas S. Souleles, 2002. "Do Liquidity Constraints And Interest Rates Matter For Consumer Behavior? Evidence From Credit Card Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 117(1), pages 149-185, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  24. Deaton, A. & Grosh, M., 1998. "Consumption," Papers 191, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Development Studies.
  25. David W. Wilcox, 1990. "Income tax refunds and the timing of consumption expenditure," Working Paper Series / Economic Activity Section 106, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  26. Alan J. Auerbach, 2002. "The Bush Tax Cut and National Saving," NBER Working Papers 9012, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  27. Slemrod, Joel, et al, 1997. "April 15 Syndrome," Economic Inquiry, Oxford University Press, vol. 35(4), pages 695-709, October.
  28. George-Marios Angeletos et al., 2001. "The Hyberbolic Consumption Model: Calibration, Simulation, and Empirical Evaluation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 47-68, Summer. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  29. Browning, M. & Collado, D., 1999. "The Response of Expenditures to Anticipated Income Changes: Panel Data Estimates," Papers 99-19, Valencia - Instituto de Investigaciones Economicas.
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  30. Souleles, Nicholas S., 2000. "College tuition and household savings and consumption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 185-207, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Jesse Rothstein & Cecilia Elena Rouse, 2007. "Constrained After College: Student Loans and Early Career Occupational Choices," NBER Working Papers 13117, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Jordi Galí & J. David López-Salido & Javier Vallés, 2005. "Understanding the Effects of Government Spending on Consumption," NBER Working Papers 11578, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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