The empirical question of whether sharply lower taxes on capital, and hence the wealthy, has actually raised saving, investment and productivity is one I will revisit.
Things have been happier in Australia, where 9% of workers' eligible earnings are paid into individual accounts: the reforms, which began in the late 1980s, have also raised saving.However, in both Sweden and Australia, as in Chile, the new accounts are mandatory, while in America they will be voluntary.
Owning cattle ties up cash and prevents wasteful spending, thus raising savings rates.
When he calls for economic policies to reflect Europe's "way of thinking", he means things like raising savings.
But even William Gale of the Brookings Institution, whose research raises doubts whether existing tax breaks raise savings, predicts that Mr. Gore's plan will work.
The economics profession is divided on whether 401(k) and other tax-subsidized accounts actually raise savings, the lifeblood of investment and growth, or merely shift existing savings out of ordinary savings accounts into tax-favored accounts.
In 2004, together with Shlomo Benartzi, a behavioral economist at U.C.L.A., he proposed a way to raise savings rates by allowing workers to commit a portion of their future salary increases to savings accounts.
Over the past three decades, open markets and global capital were supposed to raise savings, bolster investment, create jobs and spread new technologies; this would release a tidal wave of economic prosperity, above all in the poorest countries.
(3) Make reasonable assumptions about key factors like pay raises, savings, spending levels, inflation, insurance coverage, investment returns for different kinds of assets and the like.
Korkut Ertürk and Nilüfer Çağatay show how the feminization of labor stimulates investment, while an increase in female activity in housework raises savings.
