Many countries do not require all taxpayers to file an annual income tax return. Return-free systems shift some of the costs of operating the tax system from taxpayers to employers, other third parties, and the government. Return-free systems may work best when the tax system is simple: When the...

We compare a social security system where people can retire at an age of their own choice with one in which there is a legal retirement age elected through a majority voting process. We show that individuals prefer a legal retirement age higher than the one they would choose in the flexible...

Adopting a portfolio choice approach to pension design, we derive illuminating closed form solutions for optimal pay-as-you-go social security programs. We demonstrate that the nature of the implied risk-sharing effects and their magnitudes are sensitive to the stochastic specification of...

This paper uses generational accounting to assess the fiscal impacts of Korean reunification. Our findings suggest that early reunification will result in a large increase in the fiscal burden for most current and future generations of South Koreans. The Korean reunification's fiscal impact...

In an occupational choice framework individuals can either become entrepreneurs (risky income) or employed workers (safe income). Their choice is affected by the design of the pension system which discriminates between entrepreneurs and workers. We explore the comparative statics of several...

This paper considers the tax evasion decision when taxes constitute contributions to the financing of social insurance programs, such as un employment insurance. We call this evasion contribution evasion and establish that critical differences exist between contribution evasion and tax evasion,...

We assess the political support for parametric reforms of the pay-as-you-go pension system following a drop in the fertility rate. Using a continuous-time overlapping-generations model, we argue that reforms that consist in cutting pension benefits or increasing the retirement age are likely to...

This paper examines the growth effects of an increase of capital income taxes if the additional revenue is devoted to cutting wage-related social security contributions to reduce unemployment. The analysis is carried out in an overlapping-generations model with endogenous growth, unemployment,...

We identify several objectionable features of the German retirement benefit formula. Groups of insureds with higher than average life expectancy are subsidized by the rest of the members because the formula neglects differences in group-specific life expectancy. Moreover, undesirable long-run...

In this paper, we analyze how the implicit tax rate can be smoothed in a pay-as-you-go system if life expectancy increases or if the rate of population growth declines. We show that generation-specific contribution or replacement rates are necessary to smooth the implicit tax rate. Partial...