This paper reviews a number of issues relating to the policy goal of increasing national savings. The first section considers the measurement and definition of national savings. Comparisons of current US savings rates with those of other countries and with the past US experience are presented....

This paper reviews theoretical argumrents and empirical evidence regarding the interest elasticity of savings. It concludes that there are strong theoretical reasons to expect an increase in after tax rates of return to increase private savings. Moreover, the empirical rrethods used in most...

The theoretical and empirical results in this paper make a strong prima facie case for the proposition that increases in the after tax rate of return caused by tax policy are likely to bring forth significant increases in saving. Theoretical analysis using a variety of standard models tends to...

This paper examines the recent United States experience with sustained budget deficits and concludes that the events of the last five years cast significant doubt on the proposition that the timing of taxes does not affect national savings. Rather than raising private saving, the recent deficits...

This paper responds to Franco Modigliani's recent critique of our 1981 paper on the importance of intergenerational transfers for U.S. savings. Modigliani's paper is the latest salvo in a long running debate over the importance of intergenerational transfers in explaining savings behavior. While...

This paper uses newly available data from the Social Security Administration's Retirement History Survey to examine the adequacy of saving. This data source is particularly rich; survey data for respondents covering the ydars 1969, 197 1( and 1953 have been matched with Social Security earnings...

This paper uses historicaI U.S. data to directly estimate the contribution of intergenerational transfers to aggregate capital accumulation. The evidence presented indicates that intergenerational transfers account for the vast majority of aggregate U .S. capital formation; only a negligible...

Compared to the U.S. national accounts, the Japanese accounts understate consumption and government spending, and therefore overstate the national saving rate. Recently, Hayashi has recalculated Japan's national saving according to the American Department of Commerce definition and found that...