Search Results
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 ...
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 ...
Newsletter
The debate on Internet sales taxation
Newsletter
What is driving the differences in inflation across U.S. regions?
In this article, we explore differences in inflation dynamics across U.S. regions. Looking independently at the impact of consumption patterns and inflation by expenditure categories, we find that recent gaps across regions have existed largely because of different regional inflation rates for the housing category. Yet we also find that overall inflation is very highly correlated across regions.
Journal Article
Measuring Fiscal Impetus: The Great Recession in Historical Context
The authors use a measure of fiscal impetus to examine how fiscal policy has behaved during business cycles in the past, how it responded to the most recent recession, and how it is likely to evolve over the next several years. They find that policy was more expansionary than average during the 2007 recession and has been significantly more contractionary than average during the recovery. By the end of 2012, fiscal impetus was below its historical business-cycle average and it is forecast to remain depressed well into the future.
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 ...
Journal Article
How do EITC recipients spend their refunds?
The authors determine what items are purchased using the earned income tax credit (EITC)?one of the largest sources of public support for lower-income working families in the U.S. They find that recipient households? EITC payments are used primarily for vehicle purchases and transportation spending, both of which are crucial to job access and consistent with the EITC?s prowork goals.
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.
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
Charged and Almost Ready—What Is Holding Back the Resale Market for Battery Electric Vehicles?
We utilize vehicle registration microdata for all new and used vehicles registered in the U.S. for model years 2010-2022 to study the market for used battery electric vehicles (BEVs). From these records, we establish two stylized facts: 1) BEVs enter the used market at the slowest rate compared to any other powertrain technology, and 2) BEVs are driven significantly less than vehicles featuring other powertrain technologies. We connect these facts through a statistical model of used vehicle registration counts and find that there are significant behavioral differences between BEV and other ...