Search Results
Working Paper
Is Our Fiscal System Discouraging Marriage? A New Look at the Marriage Tax
We develop, apply, and test a new measure of the marriage tax: the reduction in future spending from getting married. Our measure is a comprehensive, actuarial (expected) present value. It incorporates all major and most minor US tax and benefit programs, weighing the present value of additional net taxes from marrying along each marital survivor path by the path’s probability. And it assumes clone marriage—marrying oneself—to ensure the living-standard loss from marrying is unaffected by spousal choice. We calculate our marriage tax for young respondents using the Survey of Consumer ...
Journal Article
Assessing the impact of income tax, social security tax, and health care spending on U.S. saving rates
An assessment of the effects of proposed reductions in income and Social Security taxes on middle-income Americans and of cuts in health care spending, using the generational accounting method to examine their likely impact on both current and future national saving rates.
Journal Article
The baby boomers' mega-inheritance-myth or reality?
Retirees are one of the wealthiest segments of the U.S. population, and today's retirees have more wealth than any previous generation. Some have conjectured that bequests out of this wealth will significantly boost the resources of the baby boomers-the next generation of retirees-bridging the gap between their retirement needs and resources. This Economic Commentary argues against such a view and explains why boomers have no alternative but to save for their own retirement.
Working Paper
The adequacy of life insurance: evidence from the health and retirement survey
This study examines life insurance adequacy among married American couples approaching retirement based on the 1992 Health and Retirement Survey with matched Social Security earnings histories. It evaluates each household's life insurance needs based on new financial planning software that embodies a life-cycle-planning model and covers a broad array of demographic, economic, and financial characteristics. A sizable minority of households are significantly underinsured. Almost one third of wives and over 10 percent of husbands would have suffered living-standard reductions greater than 20 ...
Journal Article
Restoring generational balance in U.S. fiscal policy: what will it take?
A study of the magnitudes of tax increases, transfer cuts, or reductions in government purchases that would be needed to rectify the huge imbalance in the generational stance of U.S. fiscal policy, concluding that congressionally proposed outlay reductions in nondefense and non-Social Security spending would still be insufficient to bridge the gap.
Conference Paper
It's High Time to Privatize: Panel Discussion
Working Paper
The equity of social services provided to children and senior citizens
A consideration of the degree of equity in the U.S. government's treatment of children vis-a-vis adults, particularly the elderly. The authors show that given current policy, today's and tomorrow's children could end up paying as much as 70 percent of their lifetime income to the government, whereas the current elderly will pay only about 25 percent on average.
Journal Article
Assessing fundamental tax reform
A look at how some basic tax reform proposals stack up against four, sometimes competing, requirements laid out by President Clinton in a December 1997 speech: Is the proposal fiscally responsible? Will it be good for the economy? Will it lead to a simpler tax system? And finally, is it fair to all Americans?
Journal Article
Generational accounts and lifetime tax rates, 1900-1991
An update of the baseline generational accounts reported in the 1993 federal budget that extends the analysis to lifetime net tax rates--the taxes that a generation pays, less the Social Security and other transfer benefits that it receives, as a share of income over its entire lifetime.
Working Paper
Generational accounting: the case of Italy
An examination of the generational imbalance in current Italian fiscal policy, showing that unless dramatic steps are taken soon, future generations' net tax bill will be four or more times the amount that today's newborns are slated to pay.