 The reaction of consumer spending and debt to tax rebates: Evidence from consumer credit dataAnnamaria Lusardi () and Olivia Mitchell No 2008/01, CFS Working Paper Series from Center for Financial Studies (CFS) Abstract: We use a new panel dataset of credit card accounts to analyze how consumer responded to the 2001 Federal income tax rebates. We estimate the monthly response of credit card payments, spending, and debt, exploiting the unique, randomized timing of the rebate disbursement. We find that, on average, consumers initially saved some of the rebate, by increasing their credit card payments and thereby paying down debt. But soon afterwards their spending increased, counter to the canonical Permanent-Income model. Spending rose most for consumers who were initially most likely to be liquidity constrained, whereas debt declined most (so saving rose most) for unconstrained consumers. More generally, the results suggest that there can be important dynamics in consumers' response to 'lumpy' increases in income like tax rebates, working in part through balance sheet (liquidity) mechanisms. Keywords: Consumption; Saving; Life-Cycle Model; Permanent-Income Hypothesis; Liquidity Constraints; Fiscal Policy; Tax Cuts; Tax Rebates; Windfalls; Credit Cards; Consumer Credit; Consumer Balance Sheets; Household Finance (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:cfswop:200801 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in CFS Working Paper Series from Center for Financial Studies (CFS) Contact information at EDIRC. |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.