Search Results
Journal Article
How do benefit adjustments for government transfer programs compare with their participants' inflation experiences?
The authors measure the inflation experienced by demographic groups that likely received benefits from major government transfer programs during the period 1980?2010. They then compare the group-specific inflation measures with the transfer programs? benefit adjustments, which are typically based on aggregate inflation. The extent to which the program benefits keep up with group inflation differs across the programs and their targeted groups, depending on both the ways in which the benefits are adjusted for price changes and the spending patterns of the various groups.
Working Paper
Charity and the bequests motive: evidence from seventeenth century wills
This paper researches the motivations for charitable bequests by looking at gifts to the poor in the wills of 1357 testators who died in Suffolk, England in the 1620's and 1630's. I find that wealth, religiosity, and the presence of family and friends influence testator generosity. The finding that wealthier, more religious individuals, and those with fewer children give more to the poor support an altruistic model of testator utility. However, the finding that individuals who give to more people outside of their immediate families are more likely to give to the poor contradicts the simple ...
Working Paper
Spending responses to state sales tax holidays
Every year over 20 states offer sales tax holidays (STHs) on specific items like clothes, shoes and other items to encourage consumption, affecting over 100 million consumers. We use a unique dataset of credit cards transaction to study the spending response to these holidays. Using a diff-in-diff methodology, we find that STHs increase overall daily spending by 8%, with large percentage increases in spending on children?s clothes and shoes of 193% and 98% respectively. Consumers with children increase spending more during STHs. Our estimates of price elasticities range from 6 for big box ...
Journal Article
Food prices and the inflation experiences of low-income households
Food prices have been rising rapidly over the past two years. In August 2008, aggregate food prices were 6.1 percent above their level in August 2007. Prices in August 2007 were already 4.8 percent above the level in August 2006. Because food purchases represent a larger portion of the expenditures of low-income households, these increases in price have a more substantial impact on the purchasing power of low-income households. This article describes the food inflation experiences of different population groups to demonstrate how different groups have been differentially affected by the ...
Newsletter
What Is Driving the Differences in Inflation Within the Midwest?
In this article, we explore differences in inflation dynamics across cities (and other areas) within the Midwest. We look independently at the impact of consumption patterns and price changes by expenditure categories, and find that the recent gaps in inflation across midwestern cities have existed largely because of disparities in price changes for housing and transportation, as well as differences in the consumption patterns (as captured by expenditure weights) for transportation and housing.
Newsletter
Household energy expenditures, 1982–2005
While energy's share of total expenditures has risen in recent years, it remains below the shares seen in the early and mid-1980s. Furthermore, the impact of the price increases on a household differs, based on the household's specific energy consumption patterns.
Journal Article
Unprepared for boom or bust: understanding the current state fiscal crisis
The headlines concerning state government finances have become increasingly alarming since mid-2001. This article discusses the roots of the current state fiscal crisis by looking at the decisions made by state government leaders during the long expansion. The author suggests increased use of rainy day funds as a way to avoid future crisis.
Working Paper
The effect of sales tax holidays on household consumption patterns
Sales tax holidays (STHs) are the temporary suspension of state (and some local) sales taxes on selected retail items for a brief period of time. The policy has gained popularity in recent years, beginning in one state in 1997 and growing to twenty by 2008. Despite the increased frequency with which states use STHs, little research has been conducted to study how households respond to this temporary tax manipulation. Our paper offers the first household-level, microeconometric evaluation on the effect of STHs on household consumption patterns. We find that on STHs, households increase the ...
Newsletter
The Fiscal Cliff and the Dynamics of Income
At the end of 2012, certain income tax policies were set to end and others to become effective. Central among these was the planned expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts (the ?Bush tax cuts?), which had been extended for two years in 2010.
Working Paper
On the relationship between mobility, population growth, and capital spending in the United States
In this paper, we assess the empirical relationship between population growth, mobility, and state-level capital spending in the United States. To evaluate the magnitude of the coefficients, we introduce an explicit, quantitative political-economy model of government spending determination, where mobility and population growth generate departures from Ricardian equivalence. Our estimates find strong responses in the level of capital provision per capita to these demographic movements; in fact, the resulting coefficients are stronger than the model delivers. Regression coefficients on ...