We ask whether a PAYG-financed social security system is welfare improving in an economy with idiosyncratic and aggregate risk. We argue that interactions between the two risks are important for this question. One is a direct interaction in the form of a countercyclical variance of idiosyncratic...

When markets are incomplete, social security can partially insure against idiosyncratic and aggregate risks. We incorporate both risks into an analytically tractable model with two overlapping generations and demonstrate that they interact over the life-cycle. The interactions appear even though...

In a stochastic economy with overlapping generations, fiscal policy affects the allocation of aggregate risks. The paper shows how to compute the welfare effects of marginal policy changes that shift risk across cohorts, in general and for an application to social security equity investments. I...

This paper studies the optimal trade-off between commitment and flexibility in an intertemporal consumption/savings choice model. Individuals expect to receive relevant information regarding their own situation and tastes - generating a value for flexibility - but also expect to suffer from...

How far is the US social insurance system from an efficient system? We answer this question within a model where agents receive idiosyncratic, labor-productivity shocks that are privately observed. When social security and income taxation comprise the social insurance system, the maximum...

This paper analyzes the evolution of the social security system in Uruguay, from the 19th century to the re-institutionalization of the “Banco de Previsión Social” (BPS) in 1986. It is common to consider that the legislation of retirement began in 1896 with the foundation of the first fund;...

This paper investigates whether exchanging the Social Security delayed retirement credit, currently paid as an increase in lifetime annuity benefits, for a lump sum would induce later claiming and additional work. We show that people would voluntarily claim about half a year later if the lump...

Protection of unemployed workers constituted a subject of concern in the Uruguayan politic agenda already in the early 20th century. The problem was tried to be solved basically through three instruments: retirement by dismissal (“jubilación por despido”) and unemployment insurance,...

During the first half of the 20th century the Uruguayan government tried to implement, although with no success, a general unemployment insurance (UI) scheme for workers in the private sector, which included an employment service. The only time that employers´ traditional opposition to an...