Public Policies and Household Saving

The declining US national savings rate has prompted economists and policymakers to ask, should the federal government encourage household savings and, if so, through which policies? In order to understand saving programmes, this volume provides a description of savings policies in the G-7 industrialized nations: the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom. Each of the seven chapters focuses on one country and addresses a core set of topics: types of accumulated household savings and debt; tax policies toward capital income; savings in the form of public and private pensions, including Social Security and similar programmes; savings programmes that receive special tax treatment; and saving through insurance. This summary of the saving incentives of the G-7 nations should be useful reading for for policymakers and academics interested in personal saving behaviour.