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Household Expenditure and the Income Tax Rebates of 2001

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Author Info
David S. Johnson
Jonathan A. Parker
Nicholas S. Souleles

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Abstract

Under the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, most U.S. taxpayers received a tax rebate between July and September, 2001. The week in which the rebate was mailed was based on the second-to-last digit of the taxpayer's Social Security number, a digit that is effectively randomly assigned. Using special questions about the rebates added to the Consumer Expenditure Survey, we exploit this historically unique experiment to measure the change in consumption expenditures caused by receipt of the rebate and to test the Permanent Income Hypothesis and related models. We find that households spent about 20-40 percent of their rebates on non-durable goods during the three-month period in which their rebates were received, and roughly another third of their rebates during the subsequent three-month period. The implied effects on aggregate consumption demand are significant. The estimated responses are largest for households with relatively low liquid wealth and low income, consistent with liquidity constraints.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 10784.

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Date of creation: Sep 2004
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10784

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomics: 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
H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household

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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Antonella Tutino, 2008. "The rigidity of choice: Lifecycle savings with information-processing limits," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2008-62, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  2. Besley, Timothy J. & Meads, Neil & Surico, Paolo, 2008. "Household External Finance and Consumption," CEPR Discussion Papers 6934, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Jordi Galí & J. David López-Salido & Javier Vallés, 2005. "Understanding the Effects of Government Spending on Consumption," NBER Working Papers 11578, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  4. Matthew D. Shapiro & Joel B. Slemrod, 2009. "Did the 2008 Tax Rebates Stimulate Spending?," NBER Working Papers 14753, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. Christopher D Carroll, . "Precautionary Saving and the Marginal Propensity To Consume Out of Permanent Income," Economics Working Paper Archive 445, The Johns Hopkins University,Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Dolls, Mathias & Fuest, Clemens & Peichl, Andreas, 2009. "Automatic Stabilizers and Economic Crisis: US vs. Europe," IZA Discussion Papers 4310, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  7. Alan J. Auerbach & William G. Gale, 2009. "Activist Fiscal Policy to Stabilize Economic Activity," NBER Working Papers 15407, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Jesse Rothstein & Cecilia Elena Rouse, 2007. "Constrained After College: Student Loans and Early Career Occupational Choices," NBER Working Papers 13117, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Blanchard, Olivier J & Cottarelli, Carlo & Spilimbergo, Antonio & Symansky, Steven, 2009. "Fiscal Policy for the Crisis," CEPR Discussion Papers 7130, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
    • Antonio Spilimbergo & Steve Symansky & Olivier Blanchard & Carlo Cottarelli, 2009. "Fiscal Policy For The Crisis," CESifo Forum, Ifo Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 10(2), pages 26-32, 07. [Downloadable!]
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