We review the empirical literature that studies the effect of ethnic diversity on the welfare state and on individual attitudes. The outcome variables that we cover in the survey are on the one hand public spending, and on the other hand individual attitudes and behaviour, including charity...

While the health risks associated with smoking are well known, the impact on income distributions is not. This paper extends the literature by examining the distributional effects of a behavioral choice, in this case smoking, on net marginal Social Security tax rates (NMSSTR). The results show...

Building on the existing literature that examines the extent of redistribution in the Social Security system as a whole, this paper focuses more specifically on how Social Security affects the poor. This question is important because a Social Security program that reduces overall inequality by...

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...

The recent financial crisis and historical record suggest important lessons about the design of national pension systems. First, wide fluctuation in asset returns makes it hard for well-informed savers to select a saving rate or a sensible investment strategy for DC pensions. Workers who follow...

This paper considers the arguments for fundamental pension reform in Germany and the United States. The two countries have recently made or are considering reforms that would reduce the generosity of the traditional, pay-as-you-go pension system. Some or all of the lost benefits would be...

A key figure which can be applied to measuring inter-generational imbalances involved in existing public pension schemes is given by the implicit tax that is levied on each generation s life-time income through participation in these systems. The implicit tax arises from the fact that, quite...

We study the sustainability of pension systems using a life-cycle model with distortionary taxation that sets an upper limit to the real value of tax revenues. This limit implies an endogenous threshold dependency ratio, i.e. a point in the cross-section distribution of the population beyond...

In 1975, 50 year-old Americans could expect to live slightly longer than their European counterparts. By 2005, American life expectancy at that age has diverged substantially compared to Europe. We find that this growing longevity gap is primarily the symptom of real declines in the health of...

Considerable research attention has been devoted to the question of whether and to what extent changes in welfare policy legislated in the 1990s might have deterred immigrant participation in welfare programs, although only post-1996 immigrants were explicitly targeted by most of the changes....