This paper explores how tax policy affects the level and allocation of national savings in the United States. It argues that the effect of taxes on the overall private saving level is relatively small and uncertain and that raising public saving is the most direct and efficient way to raise national saving. However, the tax system has a powerful impact on the composition of savings and investment. The paper suggests various specific tax measures that would not only raise government revenue but also enhance the efficiency of savings and investment.
"... Papers presented at a conference held at the Stouffer Wailea Hotel, Maui, Hawaii, January 6-7, 1989. ... part of the Research on Taxation program of the National Bureau of Economic Research." -- p. ix.
This paper examines factors affecting saving, policy tools, and tax reform. The literature on factors affecting saving and capital formation in industrialized countries is reviewed, and measurement problems are examined. The effect on the saving rate of real rates of return, income redistribution, allocation of saving between corporations and individuals, growth of public and private pension plans, tax incentives, the bequest motive, energy prices, and inflation is considered. The limited tools available to policymakers to affect savings are discussed.
Taxing Working Families provides insights into how income taxes and social security contributions affect the distribution of income between different types of families in OECD countries.
This paper reviews and analyzes broad developments and considers specific policy measures to foster saving. The chapter also describes trends in national saving rates of industrial countries in recent years and briefly discusses the prospects over the medium term. The paper also discusses the effects of policy measures on national saving and investment. Fiscal, monetary, and exchange rate policies are all shown to have major implications for saving in developing countries. Fiscal restraint is especially important, since it increases national saving by both raising public saving and reducing the country's dependence on foreign borrowing. Exchange rate devaluation and the unification of exchange markets also appear to be effective in stimulating national saving. Interest rates and financial reforms play a crucial role in effecting an efficient allocation of resources, including the mobilization of savings to finance domestic investment.
This volume brings together nine papers from a conference on international macroeconomics sponsored by the NBER in 1985. International economists as well as graduate students in the fields of global monetary economics, finance, and macroeconomics will find this an outstanding contribution to current research. It includes two commentaries for each paper, written by experts in the field, and Frenkel's detailed introduction, which serves as a reader's guide to the arguments made, the models employed, and the issues raised by each contributor. The studies analyze national fiscal policies within the context of the international economic order. Malcolm D. Knight and Paul R. Masson use an empirical model to show that fiscal changes in recent years in the United States, West Germany, and Japan have caused major disturbances in net savings and investment flows. Linda S. Kole uses a two-country simulation model to examine the effects of a large nation's expansion on exchange rates, interest rates, and the balance of payments. In other studies, Warwick J. McKibbin and Jeffrey D. Sachs discuss the influences of different currency regimes on the international transmission of inflation; Kent P. Kimbrough analyzes the interaction between optimal tax policies and international trade; Sweder van Wijnbergen investigates the interrelation of fiscal policies, trade intervention, and world interest rates; and Willem H. Buiter uses an analytical model to look at fiscal interdependence and optimal policy design. David Backus, Michael Devereux, and Douglas Purvis develop a theoretical model to investigate effects of different fiscal policies in an open economy. Alan C. Stockman looks at the influence of policy anticipation in the private sector, while Lawrence H. Summers shows the effects of differential tax policy on international competitiveness.
This paper investigates the short-term effects of fiscal consolidation on economic activity in OECD economies. We examine the historical record, including Budget Speeches and IMFdocuments, to identify changes in fiscal policy motivated by a desire to reduce the budget deficit and not by responding to prospective economic conditions. Using this new dataset, our estimates suggest fiscal consolidation has contractionary effects on private domestic demand and GDP. By contrast, estimates based on conventional measures of the fiscal policy stance used in the literature support the expansionary fiscal contractions hypothesis but appear to be biased toward overstating expansionary effects.
In A Good Tax, tax expert Joan Youngman skillfully considers how to improve the operation of the property tax and supply the information that is often missing in public debate. She analyzes the legal, administrative, and political challenges to the property tax in the United States and offers recommendations for its improvement. The book is accessibly written for policy analysts and public officials who are dealing with specific property tax issues and for those concerned with property tax issues in general.
This annual publication provides details of taxes paid on wages in OECD countries. It covers personal income taxes and social security contributions paid by employees, social security contributions and payroll taxes paid by employers, and cash benefits received by workers. Taxing Wages 2021 includes a special feature entitled: “Impact of COVID-19 on the Tax Wedge in OECD Countries”.
