We provide a long term perspective on the individual retirement behavior 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...

Bismarckian social security systems are associated with larger public pension expenditures, a smaller fraction of private pension and lower income inequality than Beveridgean systems. This paper introduces a bidimensional voting model to account for all these features. Agents differ in age,...

We analyze the effects of the introduction of gender quotas in candidate lists on the quality of elected politicians, as measured by the average number of years of education. We consider an Italian law which introduced gender quotas in local elections in 1993, and was abolished in 1995. As not...

Countries with low intragenerational redistribution in social security systems (Bismarckian) are associated with larger public pension expenditures, a smaller fraction of private pension and lower income inequality than countries with more redistributive social security (Beveridgean). This paper...

We document the presence of a trade-o. between unemployment benefits (UB) and employment protection legislation (EPL) in the provision of insurance against labor market risk. Di.erent countries’ locations along this trade-o. represent stable, hard to modify, politico-economic equilibria. We...

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, and thus decreases economic growth....

This paper argues that social security enjoys wider political support than other welfare programs because: (i) retirees constitute the most homogeneous voting group,\ and (ii) the intragenerational redistribution component of social security induces low-income young to support this system. In a...

We document the presence of a trade-off between unemployment benefits (UB) and employment protection legislation (EPL) in the provision of insurance against labour market risk. The mix of quantity and price protective measures adopted by the various countries would seem to correspond to a stable...

Generous early retirement provisions account for a large proportion of the drop in the labor force participation of elderly workers. The aim of this paper is to provide a positive theory of early retirement. We suggest that the political support for generous early retirement provisions relies...

We document the presence of a trade-off between unemployment benefits (UB) and employment protection legislation (EPL) in the provision of insurance against labor market risk. Different countries' locations along this trade-off represent stable, hard to modify, politico-economic equilibria. We...