Filter by
4212 results found
-
Public Policy Brief Highlight No. 74Understanding Deflation
Most recent discussions of deflation seem to overlook the main dangers posed by a deflationary economy and appear to offer superficial solutions. In this brief, the authors argue that, barring drastic changes in asset and output prices, deflation itself is not the main problem, but rather the recessionary conditions that sometimes give rise to deflation. […] -
Working Paper No. 396The Evolution of Wealth Inequality in Canada
Using data from the Assets and Debts Survey of 1984 and the Survey of Financial Security of 1999, the authors document the evolution of wealth inequality in Canada between 1984 and 1999. Among their principal findings: wealth inequality increased overall, and was associated with substantial declines in real average and median wealth for recent immigrants […] -
Working Paper No. 395
On Household Wealth Trends in Sweden over the 1990s
Influenced by major tax reform in the early 1990s and by the exceptional boom in the stock market at the end of that decade, overall wealth in Swedish households increased. So did wealth inequality. The large baby-boom cohorts of the 1940s have been successful in accumulating wealth and they also have large claims on the […] -
Working Paper No. 394
Wealth Transfer Taxation
The purpose of this paper is to survey the theoretical literature on wealth transfer taxation. The focus is normative: we are looking at the design of an optimal tax structure from the standpoint of both equity and efficiency. The gist of this survey is that the optimal design closely depends on the assumed bequest motives. […] -
Working Paper No. 393
A Rolling Tide
From 1989 to 2001, wealth in real terms increased overall among families in the United States. But characterizing distributional changes is much more complex; it depends on the specific questions asked. For example, there is evidence both from Forbes data on the 400 wealthiest Americans and from the SCF, which explicitly excludes families in the […] -
Public Policy Brief No. 74Understanding Deflation
Most recent discussions of deflation seem to overlook the main dangers posed by a deflationary economy and appear to offer superficial solutions. In this brief, the authors argue that, barring drastic changes in asset and output prices, deflation itself is not the main problem, but rather the recessionary conditions that sometimes give rise to deflation. […] -
Audio
International Perspectives on Household Wealth
The main focus of this conference was on the distribution of household wealth and savings in the United States and other advanced industrialized countries. Most of the papers highlighted recent trends in wealth inequality in this set of countries during the 1990s. Comparative work on a few less-developed countries was also be presented. Other topics […] -
Working Paper No. 392
Understanding Deflation
Deflation can be defined as a falling general price level utilizing one of the common price indices.the consumer price index; the GDP deflator or other, narrower indices as the wholesale price index; or an index of manufactured goods prices. Falling indices of output prices can be the result of several mechanisms: productivity increases, quality increases […] -
Strategic AnalysisDeficits, Debts, and Growth
These are fast-moving times. Two years ago, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO, 2001) projected a federal budget surplus of $172 billion for fiscal year 2003. Within a year, the projected figure had changed to a deficit of $145 billion (CBO 2002). The actual figure, near the end of fiscal year 2003, turned out to be […] -
US teenager’s budgeting analogy is misleading and helps divert attention from the real issues
Copyright 2003 The Financial Times Limited (London, England) Thursday, September 11, 2003; Financial Times; USA Edition; Letters to the Editor Sir, Jagadeesh Gokhale and Kent Smetters (“Americar’s budget bookkeeping scandal,“ September 9) present a highly misleading analogy to highlight US budget accounting. In their analogy, they present US with an 18-year old who earns $2,000 a month, […] -
Wrong policies pulling eurozone economies apart
Copyright 2003 The Financial Times Limited (London, England) Monday, September 8, 2003; Financial Times; USA Edition; Letters to the Editor Sir, Ed Crooks and Tony Major (Comment & Analysis, September 1) are right to question the ability of the eurozone economy to catch up with the US economy. Indeed, they are right to argue that the eurozone […] -
Policy Notes No. 6Is International Growth the Way Out of US Current Account Deficits?
The current account deficit of the United States has been growing steadily as a share of GDP for more than a decade. It is now at an all-time high, over 5 percent of GDP. This steady deterioration has been greeted with an increasing amount of concern (U.S Trade Deficit Review Commission 2000; Brookings Papers 2001; […]