We use a new panel dataset of credit card accounts to analyze how consumers 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...

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...

Under 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...

We use a new panel dataset of credit card accounts to analyze how consumers 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...

The sharp rise in household finance, both in debt and in assets, is one of the striking empirical facts about the US economy of the last two decades. But it is still not clear what caused it. Economists, both mainstream and heterodox, seek an explanation in financial market innovation and...

We document large differences between the United States and France in allocations of consumption expenditures and time by age. Using a life-cycle model, we quantify to what extent tax and transfer programs and market and home productivity can account for the differences. We find that while labor...

We document large differences between the United States and France in allocations of consumption expenditures and time by age. Using a life-cycle model, we quantify to what extent tax and transfer programs and market and home productivity can account for the differences. We find that while labor...

Households spent only a small fraction of their 2020 Economic Impact Payment (EIPs) within a couple of months of arrival, consistent with i) pandemic constraints on spending, ii) other pandemic programs and social insurance, and iii) the broader disbursement of the EIPs compared to the economic...

Marginal income taxes may have an insurance effect by decreasing the effective fluctuations of after-tax individual income. By compressing the idiosyncratic component o personal income fluctuations, higher marginal taxes should be negatively correlated with the dispersion of consumption across...

Analyzing account-level data from an account aggregator, we find that households increase consumption when they receive (expected) tax refunds, as if they face liquidity constraints. However, these same households smooth consumption when making payments in other years, primarily by transferring...