Fiscal Stimulus in the Form of Lower Payroll Taxes

January, 2009      Download this brief (PDF).

By Mark Bils and Pete Klenow

Mark Bils is a professor of economics at the University of Rochester and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). His research has focused on how wage setting and pricing contribute to business-cycle fluctuations, the importance of cross-country schooling differences to growth, and the importance of new and better consumer products.

Pete Klenow received his Ph.D. from Stanford University, where he is currently Landau Professor of Economics and the Gordon and Betty Moore Fellow at SIEPR. He is also a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, for whom he organizes conferences on Economic Growth. He is a consultant to the Federal Reserve Banks of several major cities, a member of the World Bank’s Microeconomics of Growth Advisory Board, and Macroeconomics Program Director for the International Growth Centre in London. Klenow specializes in macroeconomics, with emphasis on prices, productivity and economic growth.