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The Effects of Pre-announced Consumption Tax Reforms on the Sales and Prices of Consumer Durables

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  • Büttner, Thiess
  • Madzharova, Boryana

Abstract

This paper utilizes a unique micro data set on consumer durables to study the effect of consumption tax reforms on the time path of consumption. The dataset reports the monthly sales of individual products and their consumer prices in 22 European countries, which enacted numerous consumption tax reforms in recent years. We implement a reduced form specification for sales that allows us to test theoretical predictions by a standard inter-temporal model of consumer choice under different assumptions about the pass-through of taxes into prices. Our identification strategy exploits the trading of individual products in multiple countries. The results document that changes in baseline consumption tax rates are fully and quickly shifted into consumer prices and exert very strong effects on the time path of consumption. We find that a one percentage point increase in consumption taxes causes an inter-temporal shift in consumption by 3 or more percent. In addition, purchases of durable goods increase temporarily by about 2 percent in the last month before a tax increase.

Suggested Citation

  • Büttner, Thiess & Madzharova, Boryana, 2017. "The Effects of Pre-announced Consumption Tax Reforms on the Sales and Prices of Consumer Durables," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168201, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc17:168201
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    Cited by:

    1. Marius Clemens & Werner Röger, 2021. "Temporary VAT Reduction during the Lockdown," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1944, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    2. Bańkowski, Krzysztof, 2023. "Fiscal policy in the semi-structural model ECB-BASE," Working Paper Series 2802, European Central Bank.
    3. Clemens, Marius & Röger, Werner, 2021. "Temporary VAT Reduction during the Lockdown - Evidence from Germany," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242459, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tax Reform; Fiscal Policy; Consumption Tax; Pass-Through; Tax Incidence; Durable Goods;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D15 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Intertemporal Household Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • H32 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Firm
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - 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; Modern Monetary Theory

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