Highlights difficulties related to assessing macroeconomic feedback from changes in tax law and federal spending. Considers the advantages and complications involved in dynamic scoring of budget proposals.

We explore the short-run effects of fiscal policy using simulations of an empirical, rational-expectations, open-economy macromodel developed at the Federal Reserve Board. Based on this model, we find that tax cuts and spending increases generally stimulate economic activity in the short run,...

Even risky pension sponsors could offer essentially riskless pension promises by contributing a sufficient level of resources to their pension trust funds and by investing those resources in fixed–income securities designed to deliver their payoffs just as pension obligations are coming due....

This paper evaluates the effects of the earned income tax credit (EITC) on poor families’ earnings. Exploiting state-level variation in EITCs, we find that the EITC helps families rise above poverty-level earnings, primarily by inducing labor market entry in families that initially do not have...