TY  - JOUR
AU  - Auerbach,Alan J.
AU  - Kotlikoff,Laurence J.
TI  - Demographics, Fiscal Policy, and U.S. Saving in the 1980s and Beyond
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 3150
PY  - 1990
Y2  - September 1990
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w3150
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w3150.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Alan J. Auerbach
Department of Economics
530 Evans Hall, #3880
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-3880
Tel: 510/643-0711
Fax: 510/643-0413
E-Mail: auerbach@econ.berkeley.edu

Laurence J. Kotlikoff
Department of Economics
Boston University
270 Bay State Road
Boston, MA 02215
Tel: 617/353-4002
Fax: 617/353-4001
E-Mail: kotlikoff@gmail.com
M1  - published as Alan J. Auerbach, Laurence J. Kotlikoff. "Demographics, Fiscal Policy, and U.S. Saving in the 1980s and Beyond," in Lawrence H. Summers, editor, "Tax Policy and the Economy: Volume 4" The MIT Press (1990)

M2  - featured in NBER digest on 1990-03-01
AB  - This paper focuses on U.S. saving, demographics, and fiscal policy. We use data from the Consumer Expenditure Surveys of the 1980s to  consider the effect of demographic change on past and future U.S. saving rates. Our findings indicate that demographic change may significantly alter the U.S. rate of national saving and current account position over the next 50 years. The gradual aging of the population is predicted to lead to higher saving rates over the next three decades with declines in the rate of saving thereafter. Associated with these predicted saving rate changes is a predicted improvement in the U.S. current account position is the 1990s, with a very gradual deterioration during the subsequent decades. While demographics is a potentially very important factor in explaining saving, it does not appear to explain the drop in the U.S. saving rate in the 1980s. What happened to U.S. saving in the 1980s remains an intriguing puzzle. 
ER  -