Philip Rothman's Library tagged consumption →  View Popular

"Only about one-fifth of respondents in the Reuters/University of Michigan survey report that the 2008 tax rebates led them to mostly increase spending, while over half said it would lead them to mostly pay off debt. Of those in the mostly-spend category, the response was swift, with over 80 percent reporting increasing their spending within three months of receiving their rebate. Older households, households with higher wealth and higher income, and those expecting future income growth were generally more likely to spend the rebates. A review of other surveys confirms the general pattern of results and suggests that small changes in survey design do not have a major effect on the distribution of responses. "

www.nber.org/w15421 - Preview

Recession Fiscal Policy Consumption

"Economists have expressed fears over the macroeconomic consequences of falling home prices dragging down consumption in the US and other nations. This column says that housing values and consumption are indeed correlated, but once one takes into account the fact that housing price changes may be acting as a proxy for future expected income, the measured housing wealth effect, if it exists at all, is much smaller than popularly believed. That finding suggests that changes in housing wealth have little effect on consumption.
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www.voxeu.org/index.php - Preview

Housing Consumption

"Every year, TV coverage of the holiday shopping kickoff takes on the sort of breathless urgency typically reserved for hurricanes or car chases. We're told that fate of the republic hinges on the contents of our shopping bags. Historically, we've obliged by overstuffing them: Bankruptcy filings tend to surge early each year as consumers struggle to pay their post-Christmas credit card bills. But if one of this season's hottest gifts -- an $8, battery-operated toy hamster -- is any indication, we seem to be scaling back a bit this year. And that might be all right, since much of the conventional wisdom linking holiday spending and the health of our economy turns out to have been exaggerated."

www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2009112503411.html - Preview

Consumption

"From the NRF: Black Friday Verdict: As Expected, Number of Shoppers Up, Average Spending Down"

www.calculatedriskblog.com/...er-of-shoppers-up-average.html - Preview

Recession Consumption

"From the folks who brought you Cash for Clunkers."

www.econbrowser.com/...cash_for_applia.html - Preview

Consumption Recession Fiscal Policy

"Black Friday marks the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season, but retailers still aren’t sure how strong a showing consumers will make."

blogs.wsj.com/...y-looms-will-consumers-show-up - Preview

Recession Consumption Saving

"When the World Trade Organization negotiations broke down in July 2008, the global financial crisis was so quickly upon us – October panic, bailout, US election, stimulus package – that it’s easy to forget that the Doha Round didn’t end after seven years, it simply took a break. It’s still out there, zombie-like, waiting to be recalled to life, to resume generating attention-numbing headlines."

www.economicprincipals.com/...766.html - Preview

International Trade International Finance Financial Crisis Saving Consumption

"In May 2008, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) started mailing Economic Stimulus Payments (also called tax rebates) to an estimated 130 million income tax filers.1 In order to examine the impact of these payments, special questions were included in the Interview component of the Consumer Expenditure Survey from June 2008 through March 2009 to collect information on the amount of payment received, form in which it was received (electronic funds transfer or check), and how it was used (mostly for spending, saving, or paying off debt). This report contains the first analysis of these data."

www.bls.gov/taxrebate.htm - Preview

Fiscal Policy Consumption Recession Saving

"Christmas shopping season is fast approaching and you are sure to hear many economists in the months ahead worrying this could turn out to be another dismal shopping season that holds back economic growth. Now there’s a palliative from a grumpy economist who wishes everyone would spend less. It’s called, “Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn’t Buy Presents for the Holidays,” by a Wharton professor named Joel Waldfogel. "

blogs.wsj.com/...ays-orgy-of-wealth-destruction - Preview

Consumption

"Hope always seems to spring eternal in liquidity-driven financial markets. That is very much the case today in the aftermath of the biggest liquidity injection in modern history."

www.ft.com/...7b-11de-b7d2-00144feab49a.html - Preview

Financial Crisis Recession International Finance Consumption China Federal Budget

"Economists and others weigh in on the decline in total retail sales amid a rise outside the auto industry."

blogs.wsj.com/...h-for-clunkers-in-retail-sales - Preview

Recession Consumption Auto Industry

My column this week offers a skeptical take on the popular argument that the current recession has given birth to a new, more frugal American consumer. The argument isn’t so much about what consumers are doing now—everyone agrees that they’re cutting back, spending less, and saving more—so much as it is about why this is happening and about what will happen once the recession ends. The New Frugalists, as you might call them, argue that the shift in consumer behavior (which you can see here), reflects not just a rational reaction to job losses and a massive drop in wealth but rather indicates a fundamental shift in psychology, one that will endure long after the recession ends. Perhaps the most fervent and articulate proponet of this view is the Gluskin Sheff economist David Rosenberg, who argues that we’re witnessing a secular “shift from frivolity to frugality” and predicts a rise in the savings rate of ten to twelve per cent. (It’s currently around four per cent, up from zero per cent in the middle part of this decade.)

www.newyorker.com/...a-new-consumer.html - Preview

Consumption Financial Crisis Saving

We develop a technique to assess the impact of changes in mortgage markets on households, exploiting an implication of the permanent income hypothesis: the higher a household’s expected future income, the higher its desired consumption, ceteris paribus. With perfect credit
markets, desired consumption matches actual consumption and current spending forecasts future
income. Since credit market imperfections mute this effect, the extent to which house spending predicts future income measures the “imperfectness” of mortgage markets. Using micro-data, we find that since the early 1980s, mortgage markets have become less imperfect
in this sense, and securitization has played an important role.

www.afajof.org/...4950.pdf - Preview

Housing Financial Crisis Consumption

SETTING aside the crisis remembrances, the economic news today is pretty good. Retail sales in America rose by 2.7% in August, suggesting that consumers are beginning to feel a little more confident. The sales numbers were boosted by automobile purchases (thanks to cash for clunkers), but increases were fairly broad-based with a rise in non-vehicle spending of 1.1%, more than expected.

www.economist.com/...consumers_resilient.cfm - Preview

Recession Consumption

WIDELY reported yesterday was the fact that Americans have really been reining in their debt levels over the past year:

www.economist.com/...discovering_frugality.cfm - Preview

Recession Financial Crisis Consumption Saving

August auto sales provided the strongest signal of an economic rebound that we've seen yet. But August is so yesterday.

www.econbrowser.com/...car_sales_up_bu.html - Preview

Auto Industry Consumption Recession

Aug. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Sales at U.S. retailers unexpectedly fell in July, raising the risk that consumers will keep cutting back as job losses mount and temper a recovery from the worst recession since the 1930s.

www.bloomberg.com/...news - Preview

Recession Consumption

Call this another data point demonstrating the desire to return to excess consumption and the asset-based economy of the bubble years.

www.creditwritedowns.com/...uating-excess-consumption.html - Preview

Recession Fiscal Policy Financial Crisis Auto Industry Consumption

THE ECONOMIST gives you your Friday videographic fix:

www.economist.com/...rebalancing_the_economy.cfm - Preview

Consumption Saving Growth Financial Crisis

Can America wean itself off consumption? The first of a series on how the world’s four biggest economies must change to ensure sustainable global growth

www.economist.com/...displaystory.cfm - Preview

Financial Crisis Recession Growth Saving Consumption