Options for reforming unfunded public pension schemes that are now being discussed all share the feature that the burden induced by demographic change would be shifted towards presently living and away from unborn generations. Existing models of the political economy of pension reform can not...

This paper discusses the efficiency of a pay-as-you-go pension reform by introducing a child benefit in an endogenous fertility setting. In the model of a small open economy, higher fertility is associated with a reduction of lifetime labor supply. The optimum share of fertility-related pensions...

Immigration has been popularised in the economics literature as a tool to balance the troubled PAYG pension systems. A pivotal research by Razin and Sadka showed that unskilled immigration can surmount the pension problem and, further, boost the general welfare in the host economy. However a...

The paper presents a non-exhaustive survey of the literature designed to explain emergence, size and political sustainability of pay-as-you-go pension systems. It proposes a simple framework of analysis (a small open two overlapping generation economy model), around which some variants are...

Using an OLG model with skill uncertainty and private savings, we investigate whether an optimally designed set of public pension transfers can usefully supplement a nonlinear labor income tax as a welfare-enhancing policy instrument. We consider a Mirrleesian setting where agents' skills are...

We are interested in defining the optimal retirement age by socio-economic class, given a Defined Benefit and a Notional Defined Contribution scheme. We firstly implement a utilitarian framework. Depending on the risk aversion coefficients and individual time preference factors, the results...

Abstract: With the emergence of the Great Recession unemployment insurance (UI) is once again at the heart of the policy debate. In this paper, we review the recent theoretical and empirical evidence on the labor market effects of UI design. We also discuss policy issues related to UI design,...

With the emergence of the Great Recession unemployment insurance (UI) is once again at the heart of the policy debate. In this paper, we review the recent theoretical and empirical evidence on the labor market effects of UI design. We also discuss policy issues related to UI design, including...

With the emergence of the Great Recession unemployment insurance (UI) is once again at the heart of the policy debate. In this paper, we review the recent theoretical and empirical evidence on the labor market effects of UI design. We also discuss policy issues related to UI design, including...