Conventional pension systems suffer from a design defect which makes them financially unsustainable, and a source of inefficiency for the economy as a whole. The paper outlines a second-best policy which includes a public pension system made up of two parallel schemes, a Bismarckian one allowing...

We model the optimal reaction of a public PAYG pension system to demographic shocks. We compare the ex-ante first best and second best solution of a Ramsey planner with full commitment to the outcome under simple third best rules that mimic the pension systems observed in the real world. The...

In this paper, we consider how the retirement age as well as a tax financed pension system ought to respond to a change in the standard deviation of the length of life. In a first best framework, where a benevolent government exercises perfect control over the individuals' labor supply and...

This paper explores the introduction of collective risk-sharing elements in defined contribution pension contracts. We consider status-contingent, age-contingent and asset contingent risk-sharing arrangements. All arrangements raise aggregate welfare, as measured by equivalent variations. While...

We analyze the effect of means-tested benefits on annuitization decisions. Most industrialized countries provide a subsistence level consumption floor in old age, usually in the form of means-tested benefits. The availability of such means-tested payments creates an incentive to cash out...

We investigate optimal taxation of lifetime income with and without an emigration option during old age. The government sets the rates of deferred taxation and of possibly reduced taxation of interest. If agents are immobile, the optimal policy consists in full deferral of income taxes on...

The present paper quantifies the importance of family insurance for the analysis of social security. We therefore augment the standard overlapping generations model with idiosyncratic labor productivity and longevity risk in that we account for gender and marital status. We simulate the...

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...

This paper sheds light on the role of public institutions as a way to reduce tax evasion through a close link between payroll taxation and pension benefits. We use a political economy model in which agents have the possibility to hide part of their earnings in order to avoid taxation. Taxation...