Disability Insurance (DI) programs have long been criticized by economists for apparent work disincentives. Some countries have recently modified their programs such that DI recipients are allowed to keep some of their benefits if they return to work, and other countries are considering similar...

The Social Security Amendments of 1983 reduced the generosity of Social Security retired worker benefits in the U.S. by increasing the program's full retirement age from 65 to 67 and increasing the penalty for claiming benefits at the early retirement age of 62. These changes were phased in...

Early retirement represents a policy response to the appearance of a mass of redundant middle-aged workers, who were not entitled to a pension transfer in their old age. This policy is distortionary, since it reduces the incentive to accumulate human capital, hence decreasing economic growth: it...

Social Security programmes around the world link public pensions to retirement: people do not lose their pensions if they make a million dollars a year in the stock market, but they do confront marginal tax rates of up to 100% if they choose to work. After arguing that most existing theories...

We provide a long-term perspective on the individual retirement behaviour and on the future of early retirement. In a cross-country sample, we find that total pension spending depends positively on the degree of early retirement and on the share of elderly in the population, which increase the...

The analysis provides a new explanation for two widespread problems concerning European unemployment policy: the disappointingly small effect of many past reform measures on unemployment; and the political difficulties in implementing more extensive reform programmes. We argue that the heart of...

Generous early retirement provisions account for a large proportion of the drop in the labour force participation of elderly workers. The aim of this paper is to provide a political-economic explanation of the wide spread adoption of early retirement. We suggest that the political support for...

The paper develops a new approach to measuring the impact of government cash transfers on poverty alleviation that takes into account endogenous reactions and consumption smoothing of households. We use the methodology to study the impact of changes in government cash benefits on poverty rates...

The dramatic rise in the US social security and public health expenditure is only partially explained by the demographic trend. We suggest that the political complementarity between these two programmes induced a multiplicative response to the ageing process. Public health care increases the...

High rates of understatement are found for many government transfer programs and in many datasets. This understatement has major implications for our understanding of economic well-being and the effects of transfer programs. We provide estimates of the extent of under-reporting for ten transfer...