%0 Report
        %A Koeniger, Winfried
%A Kress, Peter
        %T The Effect of Unconventional Fiscal Policy on Consumption – New Evidence Based on Transactional Data
        %D 2024
        %8 2024 Oct
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 17412
        %U https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp17412
        %X We use novel transaction-level card expenditure data to estimate the effect of the temporary value-added tax (VAT) cut in Germany 2020. We find that the annualized growth rate of expenditures for durables increased by 6 percentage points (pp) during the tax cut, with a particularly strong increase of up to 11 pp for consumer electronics. The expenditure growth rate for semi-durables and non-durables did not change by and large. The estimates imply a consumption multiplier of 0.2 and an elasticity of fiscal revenues to a VAT rate reduction of two thirds.
        %K consumption expenditure
%K transactional data
%K temporary VAT cut
%K unconventional fiscal policy