A Grant to Every Citizen: Survey Evidence of the Impact of a Direct Government Payment in Israel

Naomi Feldman and Ori Heffetz

No 28312, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: In early August, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Israel disbursed one-time, universal grants to its citizens, of $220 per adult and $150 per child. Using survey data, we estimate that 25–45 percent either had already mostly spent or were planning to spend the money by year’s end and 36–52 percent mostly paid down debts. Interestingly, about as many people reported mostly donating the grant or using it to help family or friends as reported saving it (10–18 percent), with donations mostly originating from higher-income respondents. This voluntary rerouting of governmental assistance may help alleviate the trade-off between targeting and simplicity/speed of disbursement.

JEL-codes: D14 D91 E21 E62 E65 H24 H31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac
Note: PE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Published as Naomi Feldman & Ori Heffetz, 2022. "A Grant to Every Citizen: Survey Evidence of the Impact of a Direct Government Payment in Israel," National Tax Journal, vol 75(2), pages 229-263.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w28312.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: A Grant to Every Citizen: Survey Evidence of the Impact of a Direct Government Payment in Israel (2022)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28312

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w28312

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().