IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecorec/v86y2010is1p49-60.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Estimating Marginal Propensities to Consume in Australia Using Micro Data

Author

Listed:
  • LAURA BERGER‐THOMSON
  • ELAINE CHUNG
  • REBECCA McKIBBIN

Abstract

This paper uses micro data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey to estimate the marginal propensity to consume (MPC). Estimates are made by examining two types of policy changes – to income tax rates and lump‐sum transfers – which help to identify the effect of shocks to income on consumption. Using a fixed effects model the point estimate of MPC out of the tax cuts is around 1.0 and out of the Baby Bonus is at least 0.1. The paper also explores differences in the MPC across households according to measures of liquidity constraints and unemployment risks.

Suggested Citation

  • LAURA BERGER‐THOMSON & ELAINE CHUNG & REBECCA McKIBBIN, 2010. "Estimating Marginal Propensities to Consume in Australia Using Micro Data," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 86(s1), pages 49-60, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecorec:v:86:y:2010:i:s1:p:49-60
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4932.2010.00660.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4932.2010.00660.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1475-4932.2010.00660.x?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nicholas S. Souleles & Jonathan A. Parker & David S. Johnson, 2006. "Household Expenditure and the Income Tax Rebates of 2001," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1589-1610, December.
    2. 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.
    3. Souleles, Nicholas S., 2002. "Consumer response to the Reagan tax cuts," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 99-120, July.
    4. Leigh Andrew, 2012. "How Much Did the 2009 Australian Fiscal Stimulus Boost Demand? Evidence from Household-Reported Spending Effects," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 1-24, March.
    5. Gianni La Cava & John Simon, 2003. "A Tale of Two Surveys: Household Debt and Financial Constraints in Australia," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2003-08, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    6. Gans, Joshua S. & Leigh, Andrew, 2009. "Born on the first of July: An (un)natural experiment in birth timing," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1-2), pages 246-263, February.
    7. Matthew Brzozowski, 2007. "Welfare Reforms and Consumption among Single Mother Households: Evidence from Canadian Provinces," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 33(2), pages 227-250, June.
    8. Warwick J. McKibbin & Anthony J. Richards, 1988. "Consumption and Permanent Income: The Australian Case," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp8808, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    9. 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.
    10. Lusardi, Annamaria, 1996. "Permanent Income, Current Income, and Consumption: Evidence from Two Panel Data Sets," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 14(1), pages 81-90, January.
    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. Alexander Ballantyne & Tom Cusbert & Richard Evans & Rochelle Guttmann & Jonathan Hambur & Adam Hamilton & Elizabeth Kendall & Rachael McCririck & Gabriela Nodari & Daniel M. Rees, 2020. "MARTIN Has Its Place: A Macroeconometric Model of the Australian Economy," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 96(314), pages 225-251, September.
    2. Federica Teppa, 2014. "Consumption behaviour and financial crisis in the Netherlands," DNB Working Papers 453, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    3. Andrea Neri & Concetta Rondinelli & Filippo Scoccianti, 2017. "Household spending out of a tax rebate: Italian ��80 tax bonus�," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 379, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    4. Neri, Andrea & Rondinelli, Concetta & Scoccianti, Filippo, 2017. "Household spending out of a tax rebate: Italian “€80 tax bonus”," Working Paper Series 2099, European Central Bank.
    5. Jonathan Kearns & Mike Major & David Norman, 2021. "How Risky Is Australian Household Debt?," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 54(3), pages 313-330, September.
    6. Jakubik, Petr, 2011. "Households response to economic crisis," BOFIT Discussion Papers 7/2011, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition.
    7. Finlay Richard & Price Fiona, 2015. "Household saving in Australia," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 15(2), pages 677-704, July.
    8. Christian Schoder, 2017. "An estimated Dynamic Stochastic Disequilibrium model of Euro-Area unemployment," Working Papers 1725, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    9. repec:zbw:bofitp:2011_007 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Windsor, Callan & La Cava, Gianni & Hansen, James, 2015. "Home price beliefs: Evidence from Australia," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 41-58.
    11. Kim, Daehwan & Nilsen, Jeffrey, 2021. "Testing the presence of borrowing constraints from consumption responses to housing deposit changes," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    12. Callan Windsor & Gianni La Cava & James Hansen, 2014. "Home Price Beliefs in Australia," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2014-04, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    13. Richard Finlay & Fiona Price, 2014. "The Rise in Household Saving," RBA Bulletin (Print copy discontinued), Reserve Bank of Australia, pages 1-10, June.
    14. Jakubik, Petr, 2011. "Households response to economic crisis," BOFIT Discussion Papers 7/2011, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).
    15. Savoia, Ettore, 2023. "The effects of labor income risk heterogeneity on the marginal propensity to consume," Working Paper Series 2866, European Central Bank.
    16. Petr Jakubík, 2011. "Household Balance Sheets and Economic Crisis," Working Papers IES 2011/20, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Jun 2011.

    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. 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.
    2. Neri, Andrea & Rondinelli, Concetta & Scoccianti, Filippo, 2017. "Household spending out of a tax rebate: Italian “€80 tax bonus”," Working Paper Series 2099, European Central Bank.
    3. Tomas Havranek & Anna Sokolova, 2016. "Do Consumers Really Follow a Rule of Thumb? Three Thousand Estimates from 130 Studies Say "Probably Not"," Working Papers 2016/08, Czech National Bank.
    4. Andrea Neri & Concetta Rondinelli & Filippo Scoccianti, 2017. "Household spending out of a tax rebate: Italian ��80 tax bonus�," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 379, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    5. Jeffrey R. Campbell & Zvi Hercowitz, 2019. "Liquidity Constraints of the Middle Class," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 130-155, August.
    6. Jonathan A. Parker & Nicholas S. Souleles & David S. Johnson & Robert McClelland, 2013. "Consumer Spending and the Economic Stimulus Payments of 2008," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(6), pages 2530-2553, October.
    7. Alisdair McKay, "undated". "Idiosyncratic risk, insurance, and aggregate consumption dynamics: a likelihood perspective," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 2013-013, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    8. Sumit Agarwal & Chunlin Liu & Nicholas S. Souleles, 2007. "The Reaction of Consumer Spending and Debt to Tax Rebates-Evidence from Consumer Credit Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(6), pages 986-1019, December.
    9. Christelis, Dimitris & Georgarakos, Dimitris & Jappelli, Tullio, 2015. "Wealth shocks, unemployment shocks and consumption in the wake of the Great Recession," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 21-41.
    10. Rong Hai & Dirk Krueger & Andrew Postlewaite, 2020. "On the welfare cost of consumption fluctuations in the presence of memorable goods," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(4), pages 1177-1214, November.
    11. Milkman, Katherine L. & Beshears, John, 2009. "Mental accounting and small windfalls: Evidence from an online grocer," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 384-394, August.
    12. Lorenz Kueng, 2015. "Explaining Consumption Excess Sensitivity with Near-Rationality: Evidence from Large Predetermined Payments," NBER Working Papers 21772, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Tarek A. Hassan & Thomas M. Mertens, 2017. "The Social Cost of Near-Rational Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(4), pages 1059-1103, April.
    14. Ni, Shawn & Seol, Youn, 2014. "New evidence on excess sensitivity of household consumption," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 80-94.
    15. Surico, Paolo & Misra, Kanishka, 2011. "Heterogeneous Responses and Aggregate Impact of the 2001 Income Tax Rebates," CEPR Discussion Papers 8306, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Fuchs-Schündeln, N. & Hassan, T.A., 2016. "Natural Experiments in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 923-1012, Elsevier.
    17. Grant Graziani & Wilbert Van der Klaauw & Basit Zafar, 2013. "A boost in the paycheck: survey evidence on workers’ response to the 2011 payroll tax cuts," Staff Reports 592, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    18. repec:pri:wwseco:dp231 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Tullio Jappelli & Luigi Pistaferri, 2014. "Fiscal Policy and MPC Heterogeneity," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 107-136, October.
    20. Kanishka Misra & Paolo Surico, 2014. "Consumption, Income Changes, and Heterogeneity: Evidence from Two Fiscal Stimulus Programs," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 84-106, October.
    21. Norbert Michel & Nazneen Ahmad, 2012. "Consumer response to child tax credit," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 1199-1214, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household

    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:bla:ecorec:v:86:y:2010:i:s1:p:49-60. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esausea.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.