2000): “The Fiscal Effect of U.S. Immigration: A Generational Accounting Perspective,” Tax Policy and

Past research traditionally has adopted a static, cross-sectional approach in assessing the net effect of immigrants on the economy's fiscal posi-tion. But this approach is inadequate, for it fails to account for the future impact of current immigrants and their offspring. To overcome this short-coming and avoid misleading conclusions, a dynamic analysis is neces-sary. The recently developed tool of generational accounting provides an ideal framework for such analysis, for it also permits a comparison of the fiscal effects of immigration policy with those of other policies. This paper amends and then applies the technique of generational accounting to measure the fiscal effects of immigration. Among its find-ings are