The recent recession has brought fiscal policy back to the forefront, with economists and policy makers struggling to reach a consensus on highly political issues like tax rates and government spending. At the heart of the debate are fiscal multipliers, whose size and sensitivity determine the...

We exploit a panel of city-level data with rich demographic information to estimate the distributional effects of Department of Defense spending and its effects on a range of social outcomes. The income generated by defense spending accrues predominantly to households without a bachelor's...

This report examines the federal budget outlook and evaluates alternative fiscal policy choices. Official projections of the federal budget surplus have declined dramatically in the past year. Adjusting these measures for the treatment of retirement trust funds, realistic estimates of future tax...

This paper examines the federal budget outlook and evaluates alternative fiscal policy choices. Official projections of the federal budget surplus have declined dramatically in the past year. Adjusting such measures for the treatment of retirement trust funds, realistic estimates of future tax...

The relative constancy of nonfinancial corporate tax revenues as a share of U.S. GDP masks offsetting trends in the ratio of corporate profits to GDP (declining) and the average tax rate (increasing). The average tax rate rose steadily between 1996 and 2003, an increase largely attributable to...