Pensions may contribute to male/female or black/white inequality to the extent that white males are more likely to receive pensions than are other groups. Conditional on receiving pensions, the value of pension benefits varies because white males have the highest level of expected tenure...

Recent and proposed changes in the social security statutes can have profound effects on worker behavior and on pensions themselves. In the context of an optimal lifetime compensation plan, pensions depend on efficient dates of retirement. To the extent that changes in social security affect the...

Earlier claims that pensions serve as severance pay are corroborated by a new data set drawn from the 1980 Banker's Trust corporate pension plan study. A model is developed that shows how pension values which vary with the age of retirement make both workers and firms better off by moving the...

This paper argues that pensions are used as severance pay devices in an efficient compensation scheme. The major points of the study are: (1) Severance pay, which takes the form of higher pension values for early retirement, is widespread. (2) A major reason for the existence of pensions is the...

This is the introduction and summary to the fourth phase of an ongoing project on Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World. The first phase described the retirement incentives inherent in plan provisions and documented the strong relationship across countries between social...

This is the introduction to and summary of the second stage of a international research project to study the relationship between social security provisions and retirement. The project relies on the analyses of a large group of economists in 12 countries who conduct the analysis for each of...