IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v198y2021ics0165176520304432.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How household consumption responds to credit card refunds

Author

Listed:
  • Xu, Yonghao
  • Meng, Juanjuan
  • Zhang, Yu
  • Koo, Jeffrey

Abstract

With the widespread growth of online commerce, we observe an increasing amount of refunds on purchases. Do these refunds affect consumption differently than regular income such as salaries? This paper uses transaction-level data from a bank to examine the marginal propensity to consume (MPC) of credit card refunds. We find that the MPC of credit card refunds is approximately 0.7 for the following week, while the MPC of salaries is only 0.021. We also find that the MPC increases with the refund size while decreases with salary amount. These findings add novel evidence to the mental accounting theory from refunds on purchases.

Suggested Citation

  • Xu, Yonghao & Meng, Juanjuan & Zhang, Yu & Koo, Jeffrey, 2021. "How household consumption responds to credit card refunds," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:198:y:2021:i:c:s0165176520304432
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2020.109683
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176520304432
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2020.109683?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thaler, Richard H, 1990. "Saving, Fungibility, and Mental Accounts," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 193-205, Winter.
    2. Justine Hastings & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2018. "How Are SNAP Benefits Spent? Evidence from a Retail Panel," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(12), pages 3493-3540, December.
    3. Christopher D. Carroll & Jiri Slacalek & Kiichi Tokuoka, 2014. "The Distribution of Wealth and the MPC: Implications of New European Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 107-111, May.
    4. 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.
    5. Da, Zhi & Warachka, Mitch & Yun, Hayong, 2015. "Lottery tax windfalls, state-level fiscal policy, and consumption," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 9-12.
    6. Grinblatt, Mark & Han, Bing, 2005. "Prospect theory, mental accounting, and momentum," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 311-339, November.
    7. Johannes Abeler & Felix Marklein, 2017. "Fungibility, Labels, and Consumption," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 99-127.
    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. Silva, Emmanuel Marques & Moreira, Rafael de Lacerda & Bortolon, Patricia Maria, 2023. "Mental Accounting and decision making: a systematic literature review," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 107(C).

    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. Bernard, René, 2023. "Mental accounting and the marginal propensity to consume," Discussion Papers 13/2023, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    2. Augsburg, Britta & Caeyers, Bet & Giunti, Sara & Malde, Bansi & Smets, Susanna, 2023. "Labeled loans and human capital investments," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    3. Sumit Agarwal & Amit Bubna & Molly Lipscomb, 2021. "Timing to the Statement: Understanding Fluctuations in Consumer Credit Use," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(8), pages 5124-5144, August.
    4. 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.
    5. Beatty, Timothy K.M. & Blow, Laura & Crossley, Thomas F. & O'Dea, Cormac, 2014. "Cash by any other name? Evidence on labeling from the UK Winter Fuel Payment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 86-96.
    6. Lange, Ian & Moro, Mirko & Rahman, Mohammad, 2014. "Policy Labels and Investment Decision-making," Stirling Economics Discussion Papers 2014-01, University of Stirling, Division of Economics.
    7. Javier Andrés & José E. Boscá & Javier Ferri & Cristina Fuentes‐Albero, 2022. "Households' Balance Sheets and the Effect of Fiscal Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(4), pages 737-778, June.
    8. Dimitris Christelis & Dimitris Georgarakos & Tullio Jappelli & Luigi Pistaferri & Maarten van Rooij, 2019. "Asymmetric Consumption Effects of Transitory Income Shocks," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(622), pages 2322-2341.
    9. Alexander K. Koch & Julia Nafziger, 2019. "Correlates of Narrow Bracketing," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(4), pages 1441-1472, October.
    10. d’Astous, Philippe, 2019. "Responses to an anticipated increase in cash on hand: Evidence from term loan repayments," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    11. Huang, Jiaqi & Antonides, Gerrit & Nie, Fengying, 2020. "Is mental accounting of farm produce associated with more consumption of own-produced food?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    12. Tiziana Assenza & Alberto Cardaci & Domenico Delli Gatti, 2019. "Perceived Wealth, Cognitive Sophistication and Behavioral Inattention," CESifo Working Paper Series 7992, CESifo.
    13. Epanchin-Niell, Rebecca S. & Wilen, James E., 2010. "Optimal control of spatial-dynamic processes: The case of biological invasions," 2010 Annual Meeting, July 25-27, 2010, Denver, Colorado 61375, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    14. Marek, Ewelina & Raux, Charles & Engelmann, Dirk, 2018. "Personal carbon allowances: Can a budget label do the trick?," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 170-178.
    15. Antonides, Gerrit & Manon de Groot, I. & Fred van Raaij, W., 2011. "Mental budgeting and the management of household finance," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 546-555, August.
    16. Qiao Liu & Qiaowei Shen & Zhenghua Li & Shu Chen, 2021. "Stimulating Consumption at Low Budget: Evidence from a Large-Scale Policy Experiment Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(12), pages 7291-7307, December.
    17. Batiz-Lazo, Bernardo & Maixe-Altes, J Carles & Peon, David, 2023. "Behavioral drivers of cashless payments in Africa," MPRA Paper 117984, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Edika G. Quispe-Torreblanca & Neil Stewart & John Gathergood & George Loewenstein, 2019. "The Red, the Black, and the Plastic: Paying Down Credit Card Debt for Hotels, Not Sofas," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(11), pages 5392-5410, November.
    19. Andrew Ellis & David J. Freeman, 2024. "Revealing Choice Bracketing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(9), pages 2668-2700, September.
    20. Lee, Jean N. & Morduch, Jonathan & Ravindran, Saravana & Shonchoy, Abu S., 2024. "The social meaning of mobile money: Earmarking reduces the willingness to spend in migrant households," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 675-688.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Mental accounting; Consumption; MPC; Credit card refunds;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth

    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:eee:ecolet:v:198:y:2021:i:c:s0165176520304432. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    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.