TY  - JOUR
AU  - Lipsey,Robert E.
AU  - Kravis,Irving B.
TI  - Is the U.S. a Spendthrift Nation?
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 2274
PY  - 1987
Y2  - June 1987
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2274
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2274.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Robert E. Lipsey
NBER
365 Fifth Avenue, Suite 5318
New York, NY 10016-4309
Tel: 212/817-7961
Fax: 212/817-1597
E-Mail: N/A user is deceased

Irving Kravis
Department of Economics
University of Pennsylvania
3718 Locust Walk/CR
Phiadelphia, PA 19104
AB  - The belief that the U.S. is a nation of spendthrifts, unwilling to pro- vide for the future, rests on observations of particular narrow definitions of capital formation, on the use of nominal values that ignore inter- national differences in the relative prices of capital goods, and on concentration on the ratio of capital formation to total output rather than on the amount of capita1 formation per capita. By a broad definition of capital formation, the U.S. has been investing a proportion of its gross output in the last decade and a half that is not far below that of other developed countries, even in nominal terms. In world prices, or real terms, U.S. capital formation was a higher proportion of output than in nominal terms. Real gross capital formation per capita in the U.S., even by a narrow definition of capital formation, was above the average for developed countries. By a broad measure of capital formation, few countries surpassed the U.S. in per capita real capital formation.
ER  -