James Poterba
Mitsui Professor of Economics at MIT
Debt, Deficits, and Sustainability: The US Fiscal Challenge
"Federal debt as a share of GDP has increased from about 35% to nearly 100% in the last two decades, with the largest increases occurring during the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The federal budget deficit was 6.4% of GDP in 2024, and it is projected to grow as the US population ages and a larger share of the population draws Social Security benefits and qualifies for Medicare and Medicaid.
What are the economic effects of high and rising deficits, and the debt they create? What are the implications of extending all or most of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on the debt trajectory? Is current fiscal policy on a sustainable path, and if it isn't, what sort of policy actions,
including entitlement program reforms and revenue raisers including
tariffs and tax changes, could get it there? "
James Poterba is the Mitsui Professor of Economics at MIT and the President of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a non-profit research organization with more than 1700 affiliated economists. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association (AEA), a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Finance Association (AFA), the British Academy and the Econometric Society. He has served as President of the Eastern Economic Association and the National Tax Association, as vice president of the AEA, and as a director of the AFA.
His research focuses on how taxation affects the economic decisions of households and firms, particularly those involving saving and portfolio behavior. His recent research has analyzed the determinants of retirement saving, the draw-down of assets after households reach retirement, and the role of tax-deferred retirement saving programs such as 401(k) plans in contributing to retirement security.
Poterba is a trustee of the College Retirement Equity Fund (CREF). He is a past trustee of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and a former editor of the Journal of Public Economics. He is a coauthor of The Role of Annuity Markets in Financing Retirement (2001), and an editor or coeditor of Policy Responses to Tax Competition (forthcoming), Economic Analysis of Infrastructure Investment (2021), Fiscal Reform in Colombia (2005), Fiscal Institutions and Fiscal Performance (1999), Empirical Foundations of Household Taxation (1996), International Comparisons of Household Saving (1994), and Global Warming: Economic Policy Responses (1991). He served as a member of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform in 2005.
Dr. Poterba holds an undergraduate degree from Harvard College and a D. Phil. in Economics from Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar. He has been an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow, a Batterymarch Fellow, a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences, and a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. In 2014 he received the Daniel M. Holland Medal from the National Tax Association for the study and practice of public finance.
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