IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_9149.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Pass-Through of Temporary VAT Rate Cuts: Evidence from German Supermarket Retail

Author

Listed:
  • Clemens Fuest
  • Florian Neumeier
  • Daniel Stöhlker

Abstract

On 3 June 2020, the German government announced a temporary value added tax (VAT) rate reduction. VAT rates were reduced on 1 July 2020 and went back to their previous level on 1 January 2021. We study the price effects of the temporary VAT rate reduction using a web-scraped data set covering the daily prices of roughly 130,000 supermarket products. To identify the causal price effects, we compare the development of prices in Germany to those in Austria. Our findings indicate an asymmetric price response to the VAT rate cut and subsequent increase. The reduction of VAT rates led to a price decrease of roughly 1.3%, implying that about 70% of the tax cut were passed on to consumers. In contrast, the price effect of the VAT increase was only about half that size. We also study the link between tax incidence and the intensity of competition. Pass-through of the VAT reduction was higher in product groups with a large number of competing products. We rationalize this finding by analyzing consumption tax incidence in the ‘love of variety’ model of consumption.

Suggested Citation

  • Clemens Fuest & Florian Neumeier & Daniel Stöhlker, 2021. "The Pass-Through of Temporary VAT Rate Cuts: Evidence from German Supermarket Retail," CESifo Working Paper Series 9149, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9149
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp9149.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas F. Crossley & Hamish Low & Matthew Wakefield, 2009. "The Economics of a Temporary VAT Cut," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 30(1), pages 3-16, March.
    2. Francesco D'Acunto & Daniel Hoang & Michael Weber, 2018. "Unconventional Fiscal Policy," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 108, pages 519-523, May.
    3. Hindriks, Jean & Serse, Valerio, 2022. "The incidence of VAT reforms in electricity markets: Evidence from Belgium," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    4. Youssef Benzarti & Dorian Carloni, 2019. "Who Really Benefits from Consumption Tax Cuts? Evidence from a Large VAT Reform in France," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 38-63, February.
    5. Hindriks, Jean & Serse, Valerio, 2019. "Heterogeneity in the tax pass-through to spirit retail prices: Evidence from Belgium," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 142-160.
    6. Harju, Jarkko & Kosonen, Tuomas & Skans, Oskar Nordström, 2018. "Firm types, price-setting strategies, and consumption-tax incidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 48-72.
    7. Kurt Schmidheiny & Sebastian Siegloch, 2023. "On event studies and distributed‐lags in two‐way fixed effects models: Identification, equivalence, and generalization," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(5), pages 695-713, August.
    8. Youssef Benzarti & Dorian Carloni & Jarkko Harju & Tuomas Kosonen, 2020. "What Goes Up May Not Come Down: Asymmetric Incidence of Value-Added Taxes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(12), pages 4438-4474.
    9. Richard Blundell, 2009. "Assessing the Temporary VAT Cut Policy in the UK," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(1), pages 31-38, March.
    10. Schnitzer, Monika & Montag, Felix & Sagimuldina, Alina, 2020. "Are temporary value-added tax reductions passed on to consumers? Evidence from Germany’s stimulus," CEPR Discussion Papers 15189, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Kosonen, Tuomas, 2015. "More and cheaper haircuts after VAT cut? On the efficiency and incidence of service sector consumption taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 87-100.
    12. Dennis Rickert & Jan Philip Schain & Joel Stiebale, 2021. "Local Market Structure and Consumer Prices: Evidence from a Retail Merger," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(3), pages 692-729, September.
    13. E. Glen Weyl & Michal Fabinger, 2013. "Pass-Through as an Economic Tool: Principles of Incidence under Imperfect Competition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(3), pages 528-583.
    14. Felix Montag & Alina Sagimuldina & Monika Schnitzer, 2020. "Are temporary value-added tax reductions passed on to consumers? Evidence from Germany's stimulus," Papers 2008.08511, arXiv.org.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Victoria Baudisch & Matthias Neuenkirch, 2023. "Costly, but (Relatively) Ineffective? An Assessment of Germany’s Temporary VAT Rate Reduction During the Covid-19 Pandemic," Research Papers in Economics 2023-04, University of Trier, Department of Economics.
    2. Nicol s Forteza & Elvira Prades & Marc Roca, 2024. "Analysing the VAT Cut Pass-Through in Spain Using Web Scraped Supermarket Data and Machine Learning," Working papers 951, Banque de France.
    3. Alisa Frey & Justus Haucap, 2024. "VAT pass-through: the case of a large and permanent reduction in the market for menstrual hygiene products," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 31(1), pages 160-202, February.
    4. Kira Zerwer, 2024. "VAT do you eat? Green consumption taxes and firms' market share," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(2), pages 504-523, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Clemens Fuest & Florian Neumeier & Daniel Stöhlker, 2020. "The Pass-Through of Temporary VAT Rate Cuts in German Supermarket Retail," ifo Working Paper Series 341, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    2. Alisa Frey & Justus Haucap, 2024. "VAT pass-through: the case of a large and permanent reduction in the market for menstrual hygiene products," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 31(1), pages 160-202, February.
    3. Fedoseeva, Svetlana & Van Droogenbroeck, Ellen, 2024. "Temporary VAT rate cuts and food prices in e-commerce," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    4. Asatryan, Zareh & Gomtsyan, David, 2020. "The incidence of VAT evasion," ZEW Discussion Papers 20-027, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    5. Simon Loretz & Oliver Fritz, 2021. "Wirkungen der im Zuge der COVID-19-Krise reduzierten Mehrwertsteuersätze. Erfahrungswerte aus rezenten Reformen," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 67258.
    6. Sieg, Gernot & Wessel, Jan, 2022. "I would if I could: Passing through VAT reductions in the german rail industry," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).
    7. Shiraishi, Kosuke, 2022. "Determinants of VAT pass-through under imperfect competition: Evidence from Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    8. Felix Montag & Alina Sagimuldina & Monika Schnitzer, 2021. "Does Tax Policy Work When Consumers Have Imperfect Price Information? Theory and Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 9138, CESifo.
    9. Winfried Koeniger & Peter Kress, 2024. "The Effect of Unconventional Fiscal Policy on Consumption -New Evidence based on Transactional Data," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 24-58, Swiss Finance Institute.
    10. Harju, Jarkko & Kosonen, Tuomas & Skans, Oskar Nordström, 2018. "Firm types, price-setting strategies, and consumption-tax incidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 48-72.
    11. Benzarti, Youssef & Harju, Jarkko, 2021. "Can payroll tax cuts help firms during recessions?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    12. Mariia A. Elkina, 2019. "The Impact of Indirect Tax Rates Cut on Inflation: Evidence From Russia," Finansovyj žhurnal — Financial Journal, Financial Research Institute, Moscow 125375, Russia, issue 5, pages 37-49, October.
    13. Maximilian Joseph Blömer & Przemyslaw Brandt & Mosler Martin & Andreas Peichl, 2021. "Verteilungswirkungen des Kinderbonus und der temporären Mehrwertsteuersenkung im Jahr 2020," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 74(02), pages 45-50, February.
    14. Clemens Fuest & Florian Neumeier & Daniel Stöhlker, 2020. "Die Preiseffekte der Mehrwertsteuersenkung in deutschen Supermärkten: Eine Analyse für mehr als 60 000 Produkte," ifo Schnelldienst Digital, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 1(13), November.
    15. Harju, Jarkko & Kosonen, Tuomas & Laukkanen, Marita & Palanne, Kimmo, 2022. "The heterogeneous incidence of fuel carbon taxes: Evidence from station-level data," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    16. Emmanuel Chavez & Cristobal Dominguez, 2021. "Who pays for a Value Added Tax Hike at an International Border? Evidence from Mexico," PSE Working Papers halshs-03364026, HAL.
    17. Michael Funke & Raphael Terasa, 2020. "Will Germany's Temporary VAT Tax Rates Cut as Part of the Covid-19 Fiscal Stimulus Package Boost Consumption and Growth?," CESifo Working Paper Series 8765, CESifo.
    18. Pierre Bachas & Lucie Gadenne & Anders Jensen, 2024. "Informality, Consumption Taxes, and Redistribution," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(5), pages 2604-2634.
    19. Josef Baumgartner & Gabriel Felbermayr & Claudia Kettner-Marx & Angela Köppl & Daniela Kletzan-Slamanig & Simon Loretz & Margit Schratzenstaller-Altzinger, 2022. "Stark steigende Energiepreise – Optionen für eine Entlastung von Haushalten und Unternehmen," WIFO Research Briefs 6, WIFO.
    20. Wozny, Florian, 2024. "Tax Incidence in Heterogeneous Markets: The Pass-through of Air Passenger Taxes on Airfares," IZA Discussion Papers 16783, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    value added tax; tax incidence; fiscal policy; price effects; competition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9149. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.