Pubic Debt and U.S. Saving: A New Test of the Neutrality Hypothesis

摘要: The substantial post war decline in the U.S. saving rate has added great impetus to debate over whether public debt policy crowds out saving. Rather than attempting reject specific models, empirical research on and savings primarily focused impact of particular variables savings. In this paper we examine Barro's infinite horizon, intergenerationally altruistic model. A distinguishing feature modelis that aggregate consumption depends only collective resources not age distribution resources.To test proposition specify Barro model under earnings uncertainty, return demographic change whether, given level predicted by model, measuring influence actual consumption. Data are obtained from annual Current Population Surveys. Our results imply a rejection hypothesis is independent resources.They therefore cast doubt contention government does affect