We study the effects on inequality of a "Piketty transition" to zero growth. In a model with a worker-capitalist dichotomy, we show first that the relationship between inequality (measured as a ratio of incomes for the two types) and growth is complicated; zero growth can raise or lower...

Consumer debt played a central role in creating the U.S. housing bubble, the ensuing housing downturn, and the Great Recession, and it has been blamed as a factor in the weak subsequent recovery as well. This paper uses micro-level data to decompose consumer debt dynamics by separating the...

An application of generational accounting to fiscal policies that feature intergenerational redistribution. The authors consider different policies, only some of which show up as a change in the deficit, and explore their impact on the net national saving rate.

An argument that stabilization produces welfare levels nearly identical to those of welfare maximation, and that both these policies yield large welfare gains and modest growth losses relative to growth maximization policies.

A demonstration that the assumed structure of taxation can have dramatic effects on economic welfare and on the stability of the steady state in a dynamic general-equilibrium model of optimal fiscal policy. The authors find that household welfare is highest under a structure that includes...

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...

A presentation of a quantitative-theoretical model that can account for much of the behavior of the stock of public capital in the U.S. economy over the last 70 years, with an application to examining some possible causes of the slowdown in the growth of U.S. labor productivity.

An investigation of how alternative population projections affect measurement of the intergenerational imbalance in the distribution of resources and an analysis of the impact of demographic change on U.S. national saving.

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...