This book presents a comprehensive treatment of the cost-of-capital approach for analyzing the economic impact of tax policy. This approach has provided an intellectual impetus for reforms of capital income taxation in the United States and around the world. The cost of capital and the marginal effective tax rate are combined with estimates of substitution possibilities by businesses and households in analyzing tax and spending programs. This makes it possible to evaluate tax reforms and changes in government spending. Studies of the economic impact of tax policies have taken two forms. First, the cost of capital has been incorporated into investment functions in macroeconomic models, which are used to model the short-run responses to tax policy changes. Second, the cost-of-capital approach has been integrated into applied general-equilibrium models used in evaluating the long-run economic effects of tax reforms. The cost-of-capital approach suggests two avenues for tax reform. One would retain the income tax base of the existing U.S. tax system, but would equalize tax burdens on all forms of assets as well as average and marginal tax rates on labor income. The other would substitute consumption for income as a tax base, while equating average and marginal tax rates on labor income.

Volume 1: Econometric General Equilibrium Modeling presents an econometric approach to general equilibrium modeling of the impact of economic policies. Earlier approaches were based on the "calibration" of general equilibrium models to a single data point. The obvious disadvantage of calibration is that it requires highly restrictive assumptions about technology and preferences, such as fixed input-output coefficients. These assumptions are contradicted by the massive evidence of energy conservation in response to higher world energy prices, beginning in 1973. The econometric approach to general equilibrium modeling successfully freed economic policy analysis from the straitjacket imposed by calibration.As a consequence of changes in energy prices and new environmental policies, a wealth of historical experience has accumulated over the past two decades. Interpreted within the framework of the neoclassical theory of economic growth, this experience provides essential guidelines for future policy formation. Volume 2: Energy, the Environment, and Economic Growth presents a new econometric general equilibrium model of the United States that captures the dynamic mechanisms underlying growth trends and responses to energy and environmental policies. Jorgenson uses the model to analyze the impacts of environmental regulations on US economic growth and tax policies for controlling US emissions of carbon dioxide.

The tax reform movement that swept the U.S., Great Britain, and most other industrialized nations during the last decade has focused attention on international comparisons of the cost of capital. More recently, international comparability has become a critical issue of tax harmonization. This is a vital concern in the European Community, as well as between Canada and the United States. This volume provides international comparisons of the cost of different types of capital for nine major industrialized countriesAustralia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United Statesfor the period 1980-1990. In the early 1980s the introduction of tax incentives for saving and investment gradually shifted the tax base from income toward consumption. By 1990 most of these special tax provisions had been reduced or repealed in order to lower tax rates and equalize the tax treatment of different forms of capital income. Income was firmly reestablished as the most appropriate basis for taxation. Separate chapters for each of the nine countries, written by leading experts in public economics, provide detailed accounts of tax policy changes over the decade. Each chapter contains a quantitative description of these tax policies and summarizes this information in the form of effective tax rates. The book thus serves as an indispensable reference for comparing capital income taxation in industrialized countries during a period of rapid policy change.

The balance of the world economy is shifting away from the established economies of Europe, Japan, and the USA, towards the emerging economies of Asia, especially India and China. With contributions from some of the world's leading growth theorists, this book analyses the long-term process of structural change and productivity growth across the world from a unique comparative perspective. Ongoing research from the World KLEMS Initiative is used to comparatively study new sources of growth - including the role of investment in intangible assets, human capital, technology catch-up, and trade in global value chains. This book provides comparisons of industries and economies that are key to analysing the impacts of international trade and investment. This makes it an ideal read for academics and students interested in understanding current patterns of economic growth. It will also be of value to professionals with an interest in the drivers of economic growth and crisis.

These two volumes present empirical studies that have permanently altered professional debates over investment and productivity as sources of postwar economic growth in industrialized countries. The distinctive feature of investment is that returns can be internalized by the investor. The most straightforward application of this idea is to investments that create property rights, but these volumes broaden the meaning of capital formation to include investments in education and training.

International Comparisons of Economic Growth focuses on comparisons among industrialized countries. Although Germany and Japan are often portrayed as economic adversaries of the US, postwar experiences in all three countries support policies that give high priority to stimulating and rewarding capital formation. In the Asian model of growth exemplified by Japan investments in tangible assets and human capital are especially critical during periods of rapid growth.

Starting in the mid 1990s, the United States economy experienced an unprecedented upsurge in economic productivity. Rapid technological change in communications, computing, and information management continue to promise further gains in productivity, a phenomenon often referred to as the New Economy. To better understand this phenomenon, the National Academies Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy (STEP) initiated a project to better measure the contributions of different elements of the a /new economya (semiconductors, computers, software, and telecommunications) and to develop policies to meet the needs of these growth-enhancing industries. Accompanied by four workshop reports, this summary volume describes the steps required to better measure and sustain the benefits of this a /new economya in the sectors examined.