通胀纾困是否得到传导？来自消费税的证据

The combination of ongoing pandemic-related supply chain issues and the commencement of the Ukraine-Russia war triggered a sharp increase in gasoline prices in 2022, occurring alongside a forty-year high in general inflation. In response, five state governments temporarily stopped collecting excise taxes on gasoline in order to provide ‘inflation relief’ to their constituents. In this work, we examine the incidence of this tax relief and assess whether or not the full amount was passed-through to consumers using multiple methodologies in a natural experiment setting. In aggregate, we find that excise tax pass-through was not complete with about 82% of the excise tax relief passed down to consumers, though state-level event-studies show pass-through was likely complete in two states. Our results imply an unintended subsidy to gasoline retailers of approximately $390 million dollars in exchange for only about $10–15 in savings for each driver. The results highlight the need for alternative policy measures.