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Income and Lottery Sales

Author

Listed:
  • Cletus C. Coughlin

    (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis)

  • Thomas A. Garrett

    (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, garrett@stls.frb.org)

Abstract

The effect of income on lottery expenditures has generally been studied using an aggregate measure of income, usually personal income. Reasons exist for thinking that lottery expenditures do not respond equally to all sources of income. This article examines lottery consumption and income from three sources, namely income from earnings, wealth, and transfer payments. Using county-level data for seven states and controlling for demographic and other characteristics, we find that each source of income has a different effect on lottery ticket expenditures. A noteworthy finding is that purchases are most strongly influenced by transfer payments. Several policy implications follow from our results.

Suggested Citation

  • Cletus C. Coughlin & Thomas A. Garrett, 2009. "Income and Lottery Sales," Public Finance Review, , vol. 37(4), pages 447-469, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:37:y:2009:i:4:p:447-469
    DOI: 10.1177/1091142109331637
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Kent Grote & Victor Matheson, 2011. "The Economics of Lotteries: A Survey of the Literature," Working Papers 1109, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    3. Celeste K. Carruthers & Kara D. Smith, 2020. "Are “Education Lotteries” Less Regressive? Evidence from Texas," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(3), pages 1019-1040, January.
    4. Kent Grote & Victor Matheson, 2011. "The Economics of Lotteries: An Annotated Bibliography," Working Papers 1110, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    5. Po-Chin Wu & Shiao-Yen Liu & Kou-Bau Wang, 2017. "Does Unemployment Matter for Lottery Sales and their Persistence? A New Estimation Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 130(2), pages 581-592, January.
    6. Joe Hirschberg & Jenny Lye, 2013. "Gambling with Stimulus Payments: Feeding Gaming Machines with Federal Dollars," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1166, The University of Melbourne.
    7. Po-Chin Wu & Hsiao & I-Chung & Tsai & Meng-Hua, 2018. "Nonlinear Effect of Business Cycle on Lottery Sales Stability," Advances in Management and Applied Economics, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 8(4), pages 1-3.

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