Friday, August 7, 2009

ARRA, Tax Cuts, Behavorial Economics

Andrew Sullivan writes:

The stimulus has worked modestly so far, partly because it was a two-year program and its earliest stimuli were tax cuts which people saved.
Actually, the jury is out on whether these tax cuts were saved. In one of the small nods to "behavioral economics" of the ARRA, the tax cuts were not structured as they typically are in these situations-- as lump sum "refunds." Rather they were small incremental refunds on each pay check. The theory (derived from research/experiments) being that consumers would spend more of it then they would if they received a lump sum (which are almost entirely saved).

I can't find the data details... I imagine they aren't yet available: hence the "jury is still out" rather than "Andrew Sullivan is wrong-- yet again-- about economics."

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