IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/red/sed019/542.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Rational Illiquidity and Excess Sensitivity: Theory and Evidence from Income Tax Withholding and Refunds

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Gelman

    (Claremont McKenna College)

  • Dan Silverman

    (Arizona State University)

  • Matthew Shapiro

    (University of Michigan)

  • Shachar Kariv

    (University of California, Berkeley)

Abstract

Nearly a third of all personal income tax collected by the US, government is later returned in the form of tax refunds; and households tend to spend disproportionately from those refunds. This paper develops a theory of liquid assets management that explains why households voluntarily reduce liquidity by overwitholding, but then spend in response to the liquidity provided by tax refunds. Liquidity constraints that arise endogenously when income is uncertain and when adjusting tax payments is not frictionless explain these behaviors. Tax refunds tend to arrive in circumstances where income is lower than expected, so liquidity is low and the MPC is endogenously high. The average amount of income not subject to withholding and the average annual fluctuations in that income are more than sufficient to explain the size of tax refunds, and microevidence supports central mechanisms of the model.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Gelman & Dan Silverman & Matthew Shapiro & Shachar Kariv, 2019. "Rational Illiquidity and Excess Sensitivity: Theory and Evidence from Income Tax Withholding and Refunds," 2019 Meeting Papers 542, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed019:542
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://red-files-public.s3.amazonaws.com/meetpapers/2019/paper_542.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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 971-987, December.
    2. Kyle F Herkenhoff, 2019. "The Impact of Consumer Credit Access on Unemployment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(6), pages 2605-2642.
    3. Dimitris Christelis & Dimitris Georgarakos & Tullio Jappelli & Luigi Pistaferri & Maarten van Rooij, 2019. "Asymmetric Consumption Effects of Transitory Income Shocks," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(622), pages 2322-2341.
    4. Bunn, Philip & Le Roux, Jeanne & Reinold, Kate & Surico, Paolo, 2018. "The consumption response to positive and negative income shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 1-15.
    5. Carroll, Christopher D & Kimball, Miles S, 1996. "On the Concavity of the Consumption Function," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(4), pages 981-992, July.
    6. 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.
    7. Alex Rees-Jones, 2018. "Quantifying Loss-Averse Tax Manipulation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(2), pages 1251-1278.
    8. Andreas Fuster & Greg Kaplan & Basit Zafar, 2021. "What Would You Do with $500? Spending Responses to Gains, Losses, News, and Loans [The Spending and Debt Response to Minimum Wage Hikes]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(4), pages 1760-1795.
    9. Greg Kaplan & Giovanni L. Violante, 2014. "A Model of the Consumption Response to Fiscal Stimulus Payments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(4), pages 1199-1239, July.
    10. Damon Jones, 2012. "Inertia and Overwithholding: Explaining the Prevalence of Income Tax Refunds," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 158-185, February.
    11. 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.
    12. Jannett Highfill & Douglas Thorson & William V. Weber, 1998. "Tax Overwithholding as a Response To Uncertainty," Public Finance Review, , vol. 26(4), pages 376-391, July.
    13. Scott Ross Baker & Contantine Yannelis, 2017. "Income Changes and Consumption: Evidence from the 2013 Federal Government Shutdown," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 23, pages 99-124, January.
    14. J. Carter Braxton & Gordon Phillips & Kyle Herkenhoff, 2018. "Can the Unemployed Borrow? Implications for Public Insurance," 2018 Meeting Papers 564, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Neumark, David, 1995. "Are Rising Earnings Profiles a Forced-Saving Mechanism?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(428), pages 95-106, January.
    16. Lorenz Kueng, 2018. "Excess Sensitivity of High-Income Consumers," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 1693-1751.
    17. Thaler, Richard H, 1994. "Psychology and Savings Policies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 186-192, May.
    18. 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.
    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. Gelman, Michael, 2021. "What drives heterogeneity in the marginal propensity to consume? Temporary shocks vs persistent characteristics," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 521-542.
    2. Brian Baugh & Itzhak Ben-David & Hoonsuk Park & Jonathan A. Parker, 2021. "Asymmetric Consumption Smoothing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(1), pages 192-230, January.
    3. Sydnee Caldwell & Scott Nelson & Daniel C. Waldinger, 2021. "Tax Refund Uncertainty: Evidence and Welfare Implications," Working Papers 2021-18, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.

    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. Michael Gelman & Shachar Kariv & Matthew D. Shapiro & Dan Silverman, 2022. "Rational Illiquidity and Consumption: Theory and Evidence from Income Tax Withholding and Refunds," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(9), pages 2959-2991, September.
    2. Campbell, J.R. & Hercowitz, Zvi, 2018. "Liquidity Constraints of the Middle Class (revision of CentER DP 2015-009)," Discussion Paper 2018-039, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    3. Anna Sokolova, 2023. "Marginal Propensity to Consume and Unemployment: a Meta-analysis," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 813-846, December.
    4. Brian Baugh & Itzhak Ben-David & Hoonsuk Park & Jonathan A. Parker, 2021. "Asymmetric Consumption Smoothing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(1), pages 192-230, January.
    5. Gallagher, Emily A. & Gopalan, Radhakrishnan & Grinstein-Weiss, Michal & Sabat, Jorge, 2020. "Medicaid and household savings behavior: New evidence from tax refunds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(2), pages 523-546.
    6. Jérémy Boccanfuso, 2022. "Consumption Response Heterogeneity and Dynamics with an Inattention Region," Working Papers wp1172, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    7. Tomas Havranek & Anna Sokolova, 2020. "Do Consumers Really Follow a Rule of Thumb? Three Thousand Estimates from 144 Studies Say 'Probably Not'," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 35, pages 97-122, January.
    8. Christopher D. Carroll & Edmund Crawley & Jiri Slacalek & Kiichi Tokuoka & Matthew N. White, 2020. "Sticky Expectations and Consumption Dynamics," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 40-76, July.
    9. Sirisankanan, Aeggarchat, 2023. "The Response of Household Savings to Anticipated Income Changes: Natural Experiments Using Natural and Non-Natural Factors," Journal of Economic Development, The Economic Research Institute, Chung-Ang University, vol. 48(2), pages 1-31, June.
    10. Dew-Becker, Ian & Nathanson, Charles G., 2019. "Directed attention and nonparametric learning," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 461-496.
    11. Andreas Fagereng & Martin B. Holm & Gisle J. Natvik, 2021. "MPC Heterogeneity and Household Balance Sheets," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(4), pages 1-54, October.
    12. Juwon Seo, 2018. "Randomization Tests for Equality in Dependence Structure," Papers 1811.02105, arXiv.org.
    13. Radermacher, Jan W., 2023. "Mamma Mia! Revealing hidden heterogeneity by PCA-biplot: MPC puzzle for Italy's elderly poor," SAFE Working Paper Series 382, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    14. Edmund Crawley & Andreas Kuchler, 2020. "Consumption Heterogeneity: Micro Drivers and Macro Implications," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2020-005, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    15. Yasue Hakata, 2022. "Do People Smooth their After-Tax Income? Evidence from Japanese Local Tax," Bulletin of Applied Economics, Risk Market Journals, vol. 9(2), pages 147-158.
    16. Li, Geng, 2009. "Transaction costs and consumption," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1263-1277, June.
    17. Daria Pignalosa, 2021. "The Euler Equation Approach: Critical Implications of Recent Developments in the Theory of Intertemporal Choice," Bulletin of Political Economy, Bulletin of Political Economy, vol. 15(1), pages 1-43, June.
    18. Tal Gross & Timothy J. Layton & Daniel Prinz, 2022. "The Liquidity Sensitivity of Healthcare Consumption: Evidence from Social Security Payments," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 175-190, June.
    19. Melvin Stephens Jr., 2003. ""3rd of tha Month": Do Social Security Recipients Smooth Consumption Between Checks?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 406-422, March.
    20. Orazio P. Attanasio & Guglielmo Weber, 2010. "Consumption and Saving: Models of Intertemporal Allocation and Their Implications for Public Policy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(3), pages 693-751, September.

    More about this item

    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:red:sed019:542. 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: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.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.