Demographic change has differential impacts on the welfare of current and future generations. In a simple closed economy, aging -- a relative scarcity of young workers -- increases wages, increasing the welfare of the young. At the same time, population aging will reduce rates of return to...

This paper uses a lifetime framework to address questions about the progressivity of social security and proposed reforms. We use a large sample of diverse individuals from the PSID to calculate lifetime income, to classify individuals into income quintiles, and then to calculate the present...

How much does the current social security system really redistribute from rich to poor? We use the PSID to estimate lifetime wage profiles and actual earnings each year for a sample of 1778 individuals, and we use mortality probabilities to calculate expected payroll taxes and social security...

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...