Cash for Corollas: When Stimulus Reduces Spending

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hoekstra, Mark; Puller, Steven L.; West, Jeremy
• 署名单位: Texas A&M University System; Texas A&M University College Station; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of California System; University of California Santa Cruz
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20150172
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 1-35
• 关键词: regression-discontinuity designs; clunkers program; fuel-economy; scrappage; POLICY

摘要

The 2009 Cash for Clunkers program aimed to stimulate consumer spending in the new automobile industry, which experienced disproportionate reductions in demand and employment during the Great Recession. Exploiting program eligibility criteria in a regression discontinuity design, we show more than half of the subsidies went to households who would have purchased during the two-month program anyway; the rest accelerated sales by no more than eight months. Moreover, the program's fuel efficiency restrictions shifted purchases toward vehicles that cost on average $7,600 less. Thus, we estimate on net the $3 billion program reduced total new vehicle spending by $5 billion.