This paper focuses on Social Security benefit claiming behavior, a take-up decision that has been ignored in the previous literature. Using financial calculations and simulations based on an expected utility maximization model, we show that delaying benefit claim for a period of time after...

After presenting the Gruber-Wise analysis showing a strong effect on retirement of implicit taxes from pension rules, it is shown that there is no effect of these implicit taxes on unemployment. This supports the argument for avoiding high implicit taxes on continued work. Also discussed are...

The "flow approach" to labor markets builds up from the flows of workers and of jobs. It is based on three essential components, a specification of labor demand in terms of flows of job creation/destruction, a process of matching between workers and firms, and a process of wage determination...

In Chile, all covered workers must place 10% of monthly earnings in a savings account with a highly regulated intermediary that manages a single fund and provides survivors and disability insurance. Workers pay a commission charge, in addition to the mandatory 10%, to finance this insurance and...

There are many sources of political risk to public provision of pensions. This paper analyzes legislation to alter the retirement income system. This approach naturally recognizes that some changes in the system are good responses to social risks, while others generate such risks. Thus the...

Economic analysis centers on three questions whether to have a mixed defined contribution (DC)/defined benefit (DB) plan and how to invest the funding. The paper compares a DB funded plan with a funded DC plan without any individual choice. The paper then considers individu choice about...

Social Security trust fund portfolio diversification to include some equities reduces the equity premium by raising the safe real interest rate. This requires changes in taxes. Under the hypothesis of constant marginal returns to risky investments, trust fund diversification lowers the price of...

We present a picture of the labor market, one with large flows of jobs and workers, and matching. We develop a consistent approach to the interaction among those flows and the stocks of unemployed workers and vacant jobs, and to the determination of wages. We estimate the matching function,...

Firms often receive multiple acceptable applications for vacancies, requiring a choice among candidates. This paper contrasts equilibria when firms select workers at random and when firms select the worker with the shortest spell of unemployment, called ranking. With the filling of vacancies...

The President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security proposed three reform plans. Two, analyzed here, restore actuarial balance in the absence of individual accounts. One achieves this balance solely through benefit reductions. The other uses new dedicated revenue to cover one-third of the...