Alan Cole is a Senior Economist with Tax Foundation’s Center for Federal Tax Policy. His areas of focus include business taxes, cross-border taxes, and macroeconomics.
In addition to work at Tax Foundation, Alan Cole has served on the Joint Economic Committee and with The Conference Board, and published on a variety of economic topics. Alan has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Yale University and an MBA majoring in finance and public policy from the Wharton School. Alan lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and daughter.
Latest Work

Losing the Future: The Decline of U.S. Saving and Investment
Saving and investment are necessary for a society to adequately provide for its future. Saving and investment have declined substantially as a percentage of GDP over the last 40 years. American private saving barely keeps pace with total government deficits. On the whole, the country saves very little. American investment barely keeps pace with depreciation; U.S. private and public capital stock and infrastructure deteriorates almost as quickly as it can be repaired or replaced with new investment.
15 min readCBPP Misses the Mark on Migration
2 min readThe Wrong Way to Think about Migration
4 min read