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Income and lottery sales: transfers trump income from work and wealth

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  • Cletus C. Coughlin
  • Thomas A. Garrett

Abstract

Previous studies have examined the effect of income on lottery ticket expenditures using an aggregate measure of income, usually personal income. Reasons exist, however, for believing that lottery expenditures do not respond equally to all sources of income. This paper examines the propensity to purchase lottery tickets from separate types of income, namely income from earnings, transfer payments, and wealth. Using county-level data for five states, we find evidence that lottery expenditures respond differently to changes in each income type, and that ticket purchases are most strongly influenced by changes in transfer payments. Several policy implications follow from our results.

Suggested Citation

  • Cletus C. Coughlin & Thomas A. Garrett, 2008. "Income and lottery sales: transfers trump income from work and wealth," Working Papers 2008-004, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2008-004
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    Cited by:

    1. Kent Grote & Victor Matheson, 2011. "The Economics of Lotteries: A Survey of the Literature," Working Papers 1109, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    2. Cletus C. Coughlin & Thomas A. Garrett, 2009. "Income and Lottery Sales," Public Finance Review, , vol. 37(4), pages 447-469, July.
    3. Kent Grote & Victor Matheson, 2011. "The Economics of Lotteries: An Annotated Bibliography," Working Papers 1110, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    4. Joe Hirschberg & Jenny Lye, 2013. "Gambling with Stimulus Payments: Feeding Gaming Machines with Federal Dollars," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1166, The University of Melbourne.
    5. Kumar, Alok & Page, Jeremy K. & Spalt, Oliver G., 2011. "Religious beliefs, gambling attitudes, and financial market outcomes," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(3), pages 671-708.

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    Keywords

    Income; Gambling industry;

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