期刊名称：Discussion Papers in Economics / Woodrow Wilson School
出版年度：2004
卷号：2004
出版社：Princeton
摘要：nder the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, most U.S. taxpayers
received a tax rebate between July and September, 2001. The week in which the rebate was mailed
was based on the second-to-last digit of the taxpayer's Social Security number, a digit that is
effectively randomly assigned. Using special questions about the rebates added to the Consumer
Expenditure Survey, we exploit this historically unique experiment to measure the change in
consumption expenditures caused by receipt of the rebate and to test the Permanent Income
Hypothesis and related models. We find that households spent about 20-40 percent of their rebates on
non-durable goods during the three-month period in which their rebates were received, and roughly
another third of their rebates during the subsequent three-month period. The implied effects on
aggregate consumption demand are significant. The estimated responses are largest for households
with relatively low liquid wealth and low income, consistent with liquidity constraints.
