Showing 1 - 10 of 22
We study how the prevailing internal organization of the family affected the initial design of pension systems. Our theoretical framework predicts that, in society with weak family ties, pensions systems were introduced to act as a safety net, while in societies with strong ties they replicate...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10009399717
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...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005791934
In the last century most countries have experienced both an increase in pension spending and a decline in fertility. We argue that the interplay of pension generosity and development of capital markets is crucial to understand fertility decisions. Since children have traditionally represented...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005123857
Gender stereotypes are well established also among women. Yet, a recent literature suggests that learning from other women experience about the effects of maternal employment on children outcomes may increase female labor force participation. To further explore this channel, we design a...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011083404
There is often a gap between the prescriptions of an "optimal" tax system and actual tax systems, some of which can be neither efficient economically nor efficient at redistributing income. With a focus on personal income taxes, this paper reviews the political economics literature on tax...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10009209830
We analyze political selection in a closed list proportional system where parties have strong gate-keeping power, which they use as an instrument to pursue votes. Parties face a trade-off between selecting loyal candidates or experts, who are highly valued by the voters and thus increase the...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10011213305
This paper provides a direct test of the causal link from electoral rules to economic policy. Our theoretical model delivers unambigous predictions on the interaction between institutions and a time varying event, namely the unemployment rate in pivotal and non-pivotal districts. We use local...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10008466353
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...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005667126
Conventional economic wisdom suggests because of the aging process, social security systems will have to be retrenched. In particular, retirement age will have to be largely increased. Yet, is this policy measure feasible in OECD countries? Since the answer belongs mainly to the realm of...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005792455
Why do people have kids in developed societies? We propose an empirical test of two alternative theories - children as 'consumption' vs. 'investment' good. We use as a natural experiment the Italian pension reforms of the 90s that introduced a clear discontinuity in the treatment across workers....
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005792505