This paper presents new empirical evidence in support of the view that a significant fraction
of total saving is motivated by the desire to leave bequests. Specifically, I find that social …

What counts as a legitimate source of authority for interpreting a statute? The question is
central to the debate among judges and scholars over the proper method of statutory …

Tax scholars have long recognized that the major comprehensive tax system in the United
States shares features of both an income and a consumption model. 1 It is a hybrid tax. 2 …

For over a century, tax scholars and economists have debated the merits of replacing the
existing income tax with a tax on consumption. While a traditional accretion-type, or Haig …

The objective of this paper is two-fold. First, we describe and compare the gift and bequest
(estate) tax systems in the United States and Japan. Second, we use tax data to estimate the …

Ricardian equivalence may be a good approximation even if all households have finite
horizons, many households have short horizons, and an appreciable fraction of wage …

This paper examines the effects of the estate tax on charitable bequests using estate tax
records for decedents in 1986 filed during the years 1986 through 1988. It focuses on the …

We analyze the interest rate and savings effects of fiscal policy in an overlapping
generations framework that accommodates two observations:(1) The interest rate on …

This paper examines the implications for real interest rates of developments in global saving
and investment. Looking back, for most of the 1980s saving and investment were relatively …

The enormous growth in both Social Security and private pension plans has stimulated
much interest in the impact of these retirement programs on individual saving behavior and …