Keeping public finances on a sustainable foundation while the population ages is clearly a problem in Finland, as in many other western countries. The shrinking of the working-age population, ageing of the labour force, and growth in the number of very old persons form a difficult combination...

Although immigration of workers generates a positive externality on members of domestic pension systems, many countries are very reluctant to allow foreigners into their labor markets. In a political economic framework, we explain this voting outcome by considering a young unskilled median voter...

The current optimum population models found in economic literature define static optimum population used in forming policy i.e. at a given instant what should be the optimum number of people in a (closed) economy. We believe that although this definition is useful, it is very limiting as far as...

In earlier literature, the suggested Pareto improvements in pay-as-you- go (PAYG) systems have relied on the presence of externalities or the possibility of intragenerational redistribution. We show that neither assumption is necessary in an economy with intergenerational trade in a fixed factor...

With all the talk in Europe about “Islam” and “Muslim culture” it is surprising how little hard-core empirical evidence exists on the compatibility of “Muslim culture” with positive patterns of political, social, and ecological development in the world system in the 1980s, 1990s, and...

The article presents an analysis of welfare effects in Slovenia, an analysis of macroeconomic effects of the Slovenian pension reform and an analysis of effects of the pension fund deficit on sustainability of Slovenian public finances with a dynamic OLG general equilibrium model. It has been...

This paper investigates the dynamic consequences of demographic change and various pension reform scenarios for Austria. The analysis is based on a computable overlapping generations model with life-cycle labor supply, savings, and search unemployment. The public sector is decomposed into...

In this paper, the effects of alternatives to finance unemployment benefits on employment and wages are examined in a model with search generated equilibrium unemployment. It is demonstrated that employment improves if a value--added tax is levied, as opposed to a social system contribution,...

I analyze simultaneous voting on the wage tax rate and investment in public education using a model with three overlapping generations and ability differences inside each cohort. Wage tax revenue finances public education and social security benefits. I derive the results both for a...

The main objective of this paper is to go deeper into the “annuity puzzle” by introducing the altruistic and strategic bequest motive and determining whether this really is a relevant factor affecting the theoretical decision to purchase life annuities. With this end in view we develop an...