This paper analyzes the interaction between intergenerational wealth transmission, human capital investments under uninsurable labor income risk, and economic growth in a small open overlapping-generations economy with heterogeneous agents. It demonstrates how the role of the personal income...

This study examines optimal taxation in a unionized economy in which households save capital. The main findings are as follows. Judd?s (1985) and Chamley?s (1986) classical results of zero taxation on capital income holds. This is true independently of workers? savings behaviour or the...

This paper combines income and expenditure with time use data to provide a unique picture of the time paths of labour supplies, saving and full consumption for two-adult households over the life cycle. These data are used to test the life cycle model presented in the paper, at the core of which...

Life cycle savings is proposed as one explanation for much of the increase in savings and economic growth in Asia. The association between the age composition of a nation?s population and its savings rate, observed within 16 Asian countries from 1952 to 1992, is reestimated here to be less than...

Die deutsche Bevölkerung durchläuft in den nächsten Jahrzehnten einen demographischen Alterungsprozess, der als erstes die Erwerbsbevölkerung erfasst. Dieser Beitrag diskutiert die ökonomischen Folgen dieser Entwicklung. Direkte Arbeitsmarkteffekte einer schrumpfenden und alternden...

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...

As wives generally are younger than their husbands, and as they also have a higher life expectancy, wives generally have larger incentives to save for old age than their husbands. This paper analyses the household members? attitudes towards saving for old age, and the relation with the household...

The issue of whether unemployment benefits should increase or decrease over the unemployment spell is analyzed in a tractable model allowing moral hazard, adverse selection and hidden saving. Analytical results show that when the search productivity of unemployed is constant over the...

This paper extends the standard model of life cycle consumption, saving and labor supply in a number of directions. First, it argues that consumption should be defined as expenditure on household production as well as on market goods, that is, we are interested in life cycle profiles of full...

In May 2001, Germany adopted a fundamental pension reform cutting back public pensions and introducing personal pension accounts. The paper critically reviews the reform decisions and evaluates their long-term viability. It is shown that the adjustment of the Public Pension Scheme misses the...