The federal government provides generous tax subsidies for retirement saving in 401(k)s and IRAs. The subsidies are designed to increase household saving and retirement income security, important national goals. The estimated cost, however, exceeds $100 billion a year in lost revenue to the...

Using 41 million observations on savings for the population of Denmark, we show that the impacts of retirement savings policies on wealth accumulation depend on whether they change savings rates by active or passive choice. Subsidies for retirement accounts, which rely upon individuals to take...

This paper contains a micro econometric analysis of household electricity and natural gas demand for a cross section of 2,885 Danish households observed in 1996. The sample includes fulltime employed couples in single family houses. The specification of the model is guided by an explorative...

Consumption theory predicts that the cost of liquidity determines spending responses to a stimulus. We test this hypothesis directly using administrative records of individual-level loan and deposit accounts in combination with a Danish fiscal stimulus reform transforming illiquid pension wealth...

Intertemporal shifting of wage income takes place when income earned in one tax year is paid out in another tax year in order to save taxes. Shifting has implications for the evaluation of the distortionary and distributional effects of taxes and may cause serious bias in empirical estimates of...