Search Results
Journal Article
Should social security be privatized?
An examination of the rationale for public pension programs, a look at how the current U.S. Social Security system evolved, and an analysis of the issues surrounding privatization.
Journal Article
The decline in U.S. saving rates: a cause for concern?
An examination of the decline in the net national saving rate since the early 1980s, which identifies an ongoing, fiscally induced wealth redistribution toward older generations and a sizable gain in annuitized forms of saving as underlying reasons.
Journal Article
Generational accounts for the United States: an update
An examination of the continuing generational imbalance in U.S. fiscal policy, showing that under current policy, future generations will have to pay almost half of their lifetime labor incomes in net taxes to balance the government's book--more than 70% greater than the 28.6% today's newborns are slated to give up.
Journal Article
The 1995 budget and health care reform: a generational perspective
A presentation of the baseline generational accounts for 1992, estimating both the effect of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 and the further impact of the Clinton administration's health reform proposal.
Working Paper
Generational accounts: a meaningful alternative to deficit accounting
A presentation of a set of generational accounts that can be used as an alternative to the federal budget deficit in assessing intergenerational policy, concluding that the fiscal burdens on future generations will be significantly larger than those on existing generations if current tax policy remains unchanged.
Working Paper
Simulating the transmission of wealth inequality via bequests
Answering the question of how much wealth inequality arises from inheritance inequality requires data that are unavailable and potentially uncollectable. The alternative approach taken here (from Blinder [1974, 1976] and Davies [1982]) is to simulate the transmission of inequality via bequests.
Journal Article
Has someone already spent the future?
A look at how four trends in the U.S. economy -- high taxes, low savings rates, an aging population, and astronomically high health care costs -- could constrain Americans' living standards over the next few decades.
Working Paper
The burden of German unification: a generational accounting approach
An assessment of the generational stance of postunification German fiscal policy and an estimate of the burden of unification-related fiscal measures on West German generations, finding that future generations will bear much larger lifetime net tax burdens than current newborns.
Working Paper
Social security and Medicare policy from the perspective of generational accounting
An application of the generational accounting method of fiscal policy analysis to projected spending paths for Social Security and Medicare suggesting that, under realistic assumptions for these programs, future generations as well as current young Americans could bear a significantly larger share of the burden of government spending than previously thought.
Working Paper
The impact of Social Security and other factors on the distribution of wealth
Auerbach et al. (1995), document the dramatic postwar increase in the annuitization of the resources of America?s elderly. Gokhale et al. (1996) suggest that greater annuitization may explain the significant postwar rise in the consumption propensity of the elderly out of remaining lifetime resources. Gokhale et al. (2000) consider the related point that increased annuitization will reduce bequests, especially for lower and middle-income households, whose entire earnings are taxed under Social Security. By differentially disenfranchising the children of the poor from receipt of inheritances, ...