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The Bush Tax Cut and National Saving

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  • Alan J. Auerbach

Abstract

Following through on pledges made during his election campaign, President Bush proposed and Congress passed a substantial tax cut in 2001, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (EGTRRA). Much has been written about the size of the tax cut, its impact on the federal budget, its distributional consequences, and its short-run macroeconomic impact. There has been less focus on EGTRRA's incentive effects; one of the most important potential behavioral effects is on saving. To analyze the behavioral effects of the Bush tax cut on saving and other macroeconomic variables, I use the Auerbach-Kotlikoff (1987) model in conjunction with the NBER's TAXSIM model. An interesting by-product of this analysis is the 'dynamic scorin g' of the tax cut - the estimated feedback effects of behavior on revenue. By comparing the revenue losses generated by the model with those that would occur without any behavioral response, one can estimate how much of the static revenue loss would be recouped by expanded economic activity. The simulations suggest that dynamic scoring has a significant impact on estimated revenue losses, but that the tax cut's impact on national saving is still negative in the long run.

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  • Alan J. Auerbach, 2002. "The Bush Tax Cut and National Saving," NBER Working Papers 9012, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9012
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    Cited by:

    1. Sumit Agarwal & Chunlin Liu & Nicholas S. Souleles, 2007. "The Reaction of Consumer Spending and Debt to Tax Rebates-Evidence from Consumer Credit Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(6), pages 986-1019, December.
    2. Auerbach, Alan & Kueng, Lorenz & Lee, Ronald & Yatsynovich, Yury, 2018. "Propagation and smoothing of shocks in alternative social security systems," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 91-105.
    3. Acocella, Nicola & Di Bartolomeo, Giovanni & Tirelli, Patrizio, 2015. "U.S. Trend Inflation Reinterpreted: The Role Of Fiscal Policies And Time-Varying Nominal Rigidities," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(6), pages 1294-1308, September.
    4. Masud Alam, 2021. "Output, Employment, and Price Effects of U.S. Narrative Tax Changes: A Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregression Approach," Papers 2106.10844, arXiv.org.
    5. Nicholas S. Souleles & Jonathan A. Parker & David S. Johnson, 2006. "Household Expenditure and the Income Tax Rebates of 2001," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1589-1610, December.
    6. Eric M. Leeper, 2003. "Fiscal Policy and Inflation: Pondering the Imponderables," NBER Working Papers 9506, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Max Gillman, 2020. "Technical Appendix: “Income Tax Evasion: Tax Elasticity, Welfare, and Revenueâ€," Working Papers 1018, University of Missouri-St. Louis, Department of Economics.
    8. Max Gillman, 2021. "Income tax evasion: tax elasticity, welfare, and revenue," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(3), pages 533-566, June.
    9. Matthew D. Shapiro & Christopher L. House, 2006. "Phased-In Tax Cuts and Economic Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1835-1849, December.
    10. Kitao, Sagiri, 2010. "Short-run fiscal policy: Welfare, redistribution and aggregate effects in the short and long-run," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 2109-2125, October.
    11. Bandyopadhyay, Gopal & Bagheri, Fathollah & Mann, Michael, 2007. "Reduction of fossil fuel emissions in the USA: A holistic approach towards policy formulation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 950-965, February.
    12. Zodrow, George R. & Diamond, John W., 2013. "Dynamic Overlapping Generations Computable General Equilibrium Models and the Analysis of Tax Policy: The Diamond–Zodrow Model," Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, in: Peter B. Dixon & Dale Jorgenson (ed.), Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 743-813, Elsevier.
    13. Julie L. Hotchkiss & Robert E. Moore, 2007. "Assessing the welfare impact of the 2001 tax reform on dual-earner families," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2007-27, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    14. Tuochen Li & Liang Yang, 2021. "The Effects of Tax Reduction and Fee Reduction Policies on the Digital Economy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-20, July.
    15. Beckman, Jayson & Gopinath, Munisamy & Tsigas, Marinos, 2017. "Production and Trade Impacts of Tax Reform," 2018 Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) Annual Meeting, January 5-7, 2018, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 266295, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    16. Tracy Foertsch, 2004. "Macroeconomic Impacts of Stylized Tax Cuts in an Intertemporal Computable General Equilibrium Model: Technical Paper 2004-11," Working Papers 15914, Congressional Budget Office.
    17. William Gale & Peter Orszag, 2005. "Economic Effects of Making the 2001 and 2003 Tax Cuts Permanent," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 12(2), pages 193-232, March.
    18. Masud Alam, 2024. "Output, employment, and price effects of U.S. narrative tax changes: a factor-augmented vector autoregression approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 67(4), pages 1421-1471, October.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

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