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Public Policies and Household Saving

The declining U.S. national saving rate has prompted economists and policymakers to ask, should the federal government encourage household saving, and if so, through which policies? In order to better understand saving programs, this volume provides a systematic and detailed description of saving policies in the G-7 industrialized nations: the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

Each of the seven chapters focuses on one country and addresses a core set of topics: types of accumulated household savings and debt; tax policies toward capital income; saving in the form of public and private pensions, including Social Security and similar programs; saving programs that receive special tax treatment; and saving through insurance.

This detailed summary of the saving incentives of the G-7 nations will be an invaluable reference for policymakers and academics interested in personal saving behavior.

Table of Contents

Introduction
James M. Poterba

1 Government Saving Incentives in the United States
James M.
Poterba

2 Government Incentives and Household Saving in Canada
John B.Burbidge and James B. Davies

3 Taxation and Personal Saving Incentives in the U.K.
James Banks and Richard Blundell

4 Savings in Germany
Axel Börsch-Supan

5 Government Incentives and Household Saving in Italy
Tullio Jappelli and Marco Pagano

6 Public Policies and Household Saving in Japan
Takatoshi Ito and Yukinobu Kitamura

7 Public Policies and Household Saving in France
Denis Fougère

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