Although Japan and the United States are the world's leading economies, there are significant differences in the ways their wealth is translated into living standards. A careful comparison of housing markets illustrates not only how living standards in the two countries differ, but also reveals...

The fraction of the population over age sixty-five in many developed countries is projected to rise, in some cases sharply, in coming decades. This has drawn growing interest to research on the health and economic circumstances of individuals as they age. Many individuals are retiring from paid...

The unprecedented rise and persistence of large-scale budget deficits in many developed and developing nations during the past three decades has caused great concern. The widespread presence of such deficits has proved difficult to explain. Their emergence in otherwise diverse nations defies...

Governments and corporations may chip in, but around the world houshold saving is the biggest factor in national saving. To better understand why saving rates differ across countries, this volume provides the most up-to-date analyses of patterns of household saving behavior in Canada, Italy,...

The declining U.S. national saving rate has prompted economists and policymakers to ask, should the federal government encourage household saving, and if so, through which policies? In order to better understand saving programs, this volume provides a systematic and detailed description of...

The benefits of international diversification have been recognized for decades. In spite of this, most investors hold nearly all of their wealth in domestic assets. In this paper, we construct new estimates of the international equity portfolio holdings of investors in the U.S., Japan, and...

This paper explores the current tax treatment of non-qualified immediate annuities and distributions from tax-qualified retirement plans in the United States. First, we describe how immediate annuities held outside retirement accounts are taxed. We conclude that the current income tax treatment...

This paper presents evidence on the characteristic speculative dynamics of a wide range of asset returns. It highlights three stylized facts. First, returns tend to be positively serially correlated at high frequency. Second, returns tend to be negatively serially correlated over long horizons....

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...

The 1998 Survey of Consumer Finances provides information on household wealth ownership that can be used to estimate the effect of changing the Unified Estate and Gift Tax Credit on estate tax revenues. The survey also includes data on the prices at which assets were purchased, along with...