IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedgfe/2024-13.html

In the Driver's Seat: Pandemic Fiscal Stimulus and Light Vehicles

Author

Abstract

This paper explores the impact of two fiscal programs, the Economic Impact Payments and the Paycheck Protection Program, on vehicle purchases and relates our findings to post-pandemic price pressures. We find that receiving a stimulus check increased the probability of purchasing new vehicles. In addition, the disbursement of funds from the Paycheck Protection Program was associated with a rise in local new car registrations. Our estimates indicate that these two programs account for a boost of 1 3/4 million units -- or 12 percent -- to new car sales in 2020. Furthermore, the induced boost in sales coincided with the presence of significant production constraints and exacerbated an inventory drawdown, thereby contributing to the rapid increase in new vehicle prices that prevailed in the subsequent years.

Suggested Citation

  • Jack Dunbar & Christopher J. Kurz & Geng Li & Maria D. Tito, 2024. "In the Driver's Seat: Pandemic Fiscal Stimulus and Light Vehicles," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2024-013, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2024-13
    DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2024.013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2024013pap.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17016/FEDS.2024.013?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John B. Taylor, 2011. "An Empirical Analysis of the Revival of Fiscal Activism in the 2000s," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(3), pages 686-702, September.
    2. Matthew D. Shapiro & Joel Slemrod, 2009. "Did the 2008 Tax Rebates Stimulate Spending?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 374-379, May.
    3. Taylor, John B., 2022. "The effect of the rescue plans and the need for policies to increase economic growth," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 44(4), pages 768-779.
    4. Olivier Armantier & Leo Goldman & Gizem Koşar & Wilbert Van der Klaauw, 2021. "An Update on How Households Are Using Stimulus Checks," Liberty Street Economics 20210407, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    5. Mark Hoekstra & Steven L. Puller & Jeremy West, 2017. "Cash for Corollas: When Stimulus Reduces Spending," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 1-35, July.
    6. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Michael Weber, 2020. "How Did U.S. Consumers Use Their Stimulus Payments?," Working Papers 2020-109, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    7. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi, 2012. "The Effects of Fiscal Stimulus: Evidence from the 2009 Cash for Clunkers Program," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(3), pages 1107-1142.
    8. Jacob D Orchard & Valerie A Ramey & Johannes F Wieland, 2025. "Micro MPCs and Macro Counterfactuals: The Case of the 2008 Rebates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 140(3), pages 2001-2052.
    9. Erich Battistin, 2002. "Errors in Survey Reports of Consumption Expenditures," 10th International Conference on Panel Data, Berlin, July 5-6, 2002 C4-2, International Conferences on Panel Data.
    10. Jonathan A. Parker & Jake Schild & Laura Erhard & David S. Johnson, 2021. "Household Spending Responses to the Economic Impact Payments of 2020: Evidence from the Consumer Expenditure Survey," Economic Working Papers 544, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    11. Alicia M. Robb & David T. Robinson, 2014. "The Capital Structure Decisions of New Firms," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(1), pages 153-179, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Changes in gasoline and automobile prices since the pandemic
      by ? in FRED blog on 2024-08-29 13:00:00

    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. Albuquerque, Bruno & Green, Georgina, 2023. "Financial concerns and the marginal propensity to consume in COVID times: Evidence from UK survey data," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    2. Feld, Lars P. & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Schnabel, Isabel & Truger, Achim & Wieland, Volker, 2019. "Den Strukturwandel meistern. Jahresgutachten 2019/20 [Dealing with Structural Change. Annual Report 2019/20]," Annual Economic Reports / Jahresgutachten, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, volume 127, number 201920.
    3. Hendrik Lüth, 2021. "Reassessing Car Scrappage Schemes in Selected OECD Countries: A Synthetic Control Method Application," Working Paper 190/2021, Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg.
    4. Agarwal, Sumit & Koo, Kang Mo & Qian, Wenlan, 2022. "Consumption response to temporary price shock: Evidence from Singapore's annual sale event," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    5. Rittenhouse, Katherine & Zaragoza-Watkins, Matthew, 2018. "Anticipation and environmental regulation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 255-277.
    6. Hayford, Marc D., 2017. "The impact of temporary tax changes on consumption: 2000–2015," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 32-38.
    7. Takashi UNAYAMA & Norihiro KOMURA & Takahiro HATTORI, 2021. "Impacts of Cash Transfers on Consumption during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Japanese Special Cash Payment (Japanese)," Discussion Papers (Japanese) 21022, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    8. Houde, Sebastien & Aldy, Joseph E., 2014. "Belt and Suspenders and More: The Incremental Impact of Energy Efficiency Subsidies in the Presence of Existing Policy Instruments," RFF Working Paper Series dp-14-34, Resources for the Future.
    9. Alessandro Gavazza & Andrea Lanteri, 2021. "Credit Shocks and Equilibrium Dynamics in Consumer Durable Goods Markets [“Balladurette and Juppette: A Discrete Analysis of Scrapping Subsidies”]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(6), pages 2935-2969.
    10. Benjamin J. Keys & Tomasz Piskorski & Amit Seru & Vincent Yao, 2014. "Mortgage Rates, Household Balance Sheets, and the Real Economy," NBER Working Papers 20561, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Joe Piacentini & Harley Frazis & Peter B. Meyer & Michael Schultz & Leo Sveikauskas, 2022. "The Impact of COVID-19 on Labor Markets and Inequality," Economic Working Papers 551, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    12. Peter Haan & Adrián Santonja & Aleksandar Zaklan, 2025. "Effectiveness and Heterogeneous Effects of Purchase Grants for Electric Vehicles," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 88(1), pages 185-223, January.
    13. Mark Hoekstra & Steven L. Puller & Jeremy West, 2017. "Cash for Corollas: When Stimulus Reduces Spending," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 1-35, July.
    14. West, Jeremy & Hoekstra, Mark & Meer, Jonathan & Puller, Steven L., 2017. "Vehicle miles (not) traveled: Fuel economy requirements, vehicle characteristics, and household driving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 65-81.
    15. Ueda, Kozo, 2024. "Household spending responses to two-time COVID-19 payments," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    16. Bartal, Mehdi & Becard, Yvan, 2024. "Consumption tax cuts vs stimulus payments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 239(C).
    17. Francisco Gallego & Juan-Pablo Montero & Hernán Barahona, 2016. "Adopting a Cleaner Technology: The Effect of Driving Restrictions on Fleet Turnover," Documentos de Trabajo 469, Instituto de Economia. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile..
    18. Kourtney Koebel & Tammy Schirle, 2016. "The Differential Impact of Universal Child Benefits on the Labour Supply of Married and Single Mothers," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 42(1), pages 49-64, March.
    19. Carter, Colin A. & Steinbach, Sandro & Zhuang, Xiting, 2022. "Global Container Trade Disruptions and U.S. Agricultural Exports," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322364, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    20. Kitano, Taiju, 2025. "Greening vehicle fleets: A structural analysis of scrappage programs during the financial crisis," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 103(PB).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies
    • G51 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance - - - Household Savings, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household

    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:fip:fedgfe:2024-13. 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: Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbgvus.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.