Personal Savings, Consumption and Tax Policy

To raise the saving rate of Americans from a level far below other industrialized nations, many changes have been proposed and heatedly debated. This volume offers the views of 19 fiscal policy analysts well qualified to evaluate any attempt to raise national saving and domestically financed investment.

The contributors include the chairman of the Finance Committee of the US Senate, the current chairman and a former chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, the current chairman and a former chairman of the Congressional Budget Office, and the chairman of a prominent think tank, as well as other experts.

From the wealth of their experience, these experts review the effects of the many changes in tax law in the 1980s, including IRAs. They identify the factors most likely to achieve the personal and national saving needed to finance the capital investment the nation's economy requires.