Workers' Spending Response to the 2011 Payroll Tax Cuts

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Graziani, Grant; Van Der Klaauw, Wilbert; Zafar, Basit
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Berkeley; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - New York
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.20140065
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 124-159
• 关键词: consumer response; household consumption; income

摘要

This paper investigates workers' spending response to the 2011 payroll tax cuts. Respondents were surveyed at the beginning and end of 2011, which allows the comparison of ex ante and ex post reported use of the extra income. While workers on average intended to spend 14 percent of their tax cut income, they ex post reported spending 36 percent of the funds. This pattern of higher spending ex post is shared across all demographic groups. Differences across workers in this shift to greater ex post spending are largely unexplained by differences in either present bias or unanticipated shocks, so in the end the upward revision in spending remains a puzzle.