This paper develops a general equilibrium life-cycle model with endogenous retirement and disability risk, in order to quantify the impact of recent pension reforms in Germany. At certain ages households may either apply for disability pensions (DP) or old-age pensions (OAP), de-pending on...

This paper studies pension design from a risk management point of view using a lexicographic loss aversion model. Interest in this model stems from the fact that it explains income expansion paths of equity and total savings particularly well. I find that all income groups are likely to benefit...

This paper analyses the effects of a pension system privatization in a unionized economy. Using an overlapping-generations framework we show that in an environment characterized by unemployment, a reform towards a private pension system in the steady state may result in lower levels of...

Pension benefit rules depend on individual history far more than taxes do, and age plays a much larger role in pension determination than in tax determination. Apart from some simulation studies, theoretical studies of optimal tax design typically contain neither a mandatory pension system nor...

A pay-as-you-go (paygo) pension program may provide intergenerational pooling of risks to individuals' labor and capital income over the life cycle. By means of a model that provides illuminating closed form solutions, we demonstrate that the magnitude of the optimal paygo program and the nature...

We study the interplay between tenure decisions, stock market investment and the public social security system. Housing equity not only serves a dual purpose as a consumption good and as an asset, but also provides insurance to buffer various risks in retirement. Our life cycle model captures...

This paper explores how pension reforms in countries with PAYG schemes affect countries with funded systems. We use a two-country two-period overlapping-generations model, where the countries only differ in their pension systems. We distinguish between the case where a reform potentially leads...

We analyze the political stability of capital funded social security. In particular, using a stylized theoretical framework we study the mechanisms behind governments capturing pension assets in order to lower current taxes. This is followed by an analysis of the analogous mechanisms in a...

This paper documents and analyzes an important and puzzling stylized fact about retirement behavior: the large concentration of job exits at specific ages. In Germany, almost 30% of workers retire precisely in the month when they reach one of three statutory retirement ages, although there is...

In this paper we identify conditions under which the introduction of a pay-as-you-go social security system is ex-ante Pareto-improving in a stochastic overlapping generations economy with capital accumulation and land. We argue that these conditions are consistent with many calibrations of the...