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2019 Conference

May 21–23, 2019

Westin Arlington Gateway, Arlington, VA, USA

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D2b How Do Refund Savings Affect Household Participation in the Gig Economy? Evidence from Low- and Moderate-Income Households

Wednesday, May 22, 2019 at 3:45 PM–5:15 PM EDT
F. Scott Fitzgerald B
Key Words

liquid assets, gig economy, household finance, experiment, 

Short Description

Nearly a tenth of US workers earn money through the gig economy. As the gig economy continues to grow, there is an increased need to understand what influences the decision to work in this segment of the labor market.

In this paper, using panel survey data that were merged with administrative tax records and results form a tax-time savings experiment, we apply an instrumental variable research design to investigate how the decision to save the tax refund affects participation in the gig economy for low- and moderate-income (LMI) households.

Although refund savings had no effect on participation in the gig economy for the full sample, we found strong effects in our subsample analyses. Refund savings reduced gig participation for LMI students by 28% but increased gig participation for liquidity-constrained non-students by 44%. We conclude by discussing how these findings speak to the importance of liquid assets in LMI households.

 

First & Corresponding Author

Sam Bufe, Washington University
Authors in the order to be printed

Sam Bufe, Olga Kondratjeva, Stephen Roll, Ellen Frank-Miller, Michal Grinstein-Weiss

Additional Authors

Olga Kondratjeva, Washington University
Stephen Roll, Washington University
Ellen Frank-Miller, Washington University
Michal Grinstein-Weiss, Washington University
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