Since the mid-1990s, the national income and product accounts personal saving rate for the United States has been trending down, dropping into negative territory for three months during the past two years. This paper examines measurement problems surrounding two of the standard definitions of...

This paper explores the relationship between age distribution and asset returns impled by an overlapping-generations asset pricing model. The model predicts that as more individuals reach the age when the increment to their wealth reaches its maximum, asset returns fall. Cross-sectional evidence...

Remarks at the National Association for Business Economics Annual Meeting, New York City.

Remarks at the Barclays 16th Annual Global Inflation-Linked Conference, New York City.

Empirical evidence suggests that fast-growing economies tend to have not only high saving rates but also low interest rates. This evidence is difficult to reconcile with standard explanations about the positive linkages between saving and growth. These explanations rely either on high saving to...

In the years since the bursting of the housing bubble, the personal saving rate has trended up from around 1% to around 6%, while the ratio of household debt to disposable income has dropped from 130% to 118%. Changes over time in the availability of credit to households can explain 90% of the...

Remarks at the at the Society of American Business Editors and Writers Fall Conference, City University of New York, Graduate School of Journalism, New York City.