Consumption expenditure declines sharply at the time of retirement for many households, but the majority maintain a smooth consumption path. A simple life cycle model with uncertainty about the time of retirement can account for this pattern. A richer version of the model is calibrated to data...

The paper examines the possible effects of introducing a large-scale welfare reform in Sweden, namely, the introduction of comprehensive welfare accounts. Under this policy, individuals make mandatory contributions to accounts, which they can top up with voluntary contributions. In return,...

Economies with low unemployment often have high disability rates. In Norway, the permanent disability insurance rolls outnumber registered unemployment by four to one. Based on administrative register data matched with firms' financial statements and closure data collected from bankruptcy...

Models of status based on Frank's (1985) count of the number of people with lower conspicuous consumption are inconsistent with the extensive empirical literature on happiness and well-being. The alternative approach to consumption interaction which uses some form of relative income has been...

Over the last three decades, average income for the bottom half of the US distribution increased by 8% while their average saving rate decreased by eight percentage points. Over the same period the US experienced a substantial increase in inequality and a continuous decrease in the aggregate...

In this paper we study the social, demographic and economic origins of social security. The data for the U.S. and for a cross section of countries make it clear that urbanization and industrialization are strongly associated with the rise of social insurance. We describe a model economy in which...

How does international integration affect the welfare state? Does it call for a leaner or an expanded welfare state? International integration may affect the distortions caused by welfare state activities but also the risks motivating social insurance mechanisms. This paper addresses these...

The Dutch mandatory pension system consists of two parts: a public pay-as-you-go part that provides a minimum income to all Dutch inhabitants over age 64; and an occupation-specific capital-funded part that provides supplementary retirement income. The goal of this paper is to test for the effect...

From 1995 to 2005, the average urban household saving rate in China rose by 8 percentage points, to about one quarter of disposable income. We use household-level data to explain why households are postponing consumption despite rapid income growth. Tracing cohorts over time indicates a virtual...

We study the effect of permanent income innovations on health for a prime-aged population. Using information on more than half a million individuals sampled over a twenty-five year period in three different cross-sectional surveys we aggregate data by date-of-birth cohort to construct a...