Following through on pledges made during his election campaign, President Bush proposed and Congress passed a substantial tax cut in 2001, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (EGTRRA). Much has been written about the size of the tax cut, its impact on the federal budget, its...

There is probably no specific problem in tax analysis which has generated as much study and discussion among economists as the question of how to formulate "neutral" tax incentives for investment. Yet no consensus has been reached concerning the proper approach to take when adjusting taxes....

It is well understood that a tax which distorts relative prices generates a welfare cost or "excess burden" in addition to any associated transfer of resources, but there remains considerable controversy and confusion with respect to procedures for measuring this excess burden. The purpose of...

This paper examines whether middle age American households purchase adequate amounts of life insurance. The analysis is based on SRI International's 1980, 1982, and 1984 surveys of the financial positions of American households. Our findings indicate that a significant minority of American wives...

Like many other developed economies, the United States has imposed fiscal rules in attempting to impose a degree of fiscal discipline on the political process of budget determination. The federal government has operated under a series of budget control regimes that have been complex in nature...

We evaluate several actual and hypothetical sustainable PAYGO pension structures, including: (1) versions of the US Social Security system with annual adjustments of taxes or benefits to maintain fiscal balance; (2) Sweden's Notional Defined Contribution system and several variants developed to...

This paper uses Generational Accounting to assess the fiscal impacts of Korean reunification. Our findings suggest that early reunification will result in a large increase in the fiscal burden for most current and future generations of South Koreans. The Korean reunification's fiscal impact...

Recent data present a puzzle: the ratio of corporate tax losses to positive income was much higher around 2001 than in earlier recessions. Using a comprehensive 1982-2005 sample of U.S. corporation tax returns, we explore a variety of potential explanations for this surge in tax losses, taking...

This paper reviews the state of discretionary fiscal policy. Among its findings are: (1) In recent years, U.S. discretionary fiscal policy appears to have become more active in response to both cyclical conditions and a simple measure of budget balance. (2) Considerable uncertainty remains about...