Though the main benchmark used to assess pension reforms continues to be the expected resulting fall in future government spending, the impact of policy changes on pension adequacy is increasingly coming to the fore. As yet, there does not seem to be a broad consensus in policymaking circles and...

In most OECD countries the gap between rich and poor has widened over the past decades. This paper analyzes whether and to what extent taxes and social transfers have contributed to this trend. Has the redistributive power of different social programs changed over time? The paper contributes to...

In this paper, we examine the old-age security hypothesis according to which parents rear children because they expect the latter to care for them in their later years. In developing countries where there are no perfect capital markets, children are usually viewed as a potential source of income...

There has been consideration of alternative social security financing methods throughout the world during the last two decades. One alternative adopted in several countries is the privatization of so-called pay-as-you-go financing systems. The purpose of this study is to estimate social benefits...

The paper identifies the sustainable rate of return (to be credited on all account balances) for a generic Defined-Contribution pension scheme regardless of its degree of funding.

This study examines the effects of fiscal austerity, among other socioeconomic variables, on suicide rates in Greece over the period 1968-2011. Our results suggest that fiscal austerity, higher unemployment rates, negative economic growth and reduced fertility rates, significantly increase...

The Ecofin-Oecd methodology is applied to reconstruct the health care expenditure evolution in Italy and in the Region Emilia Romagna. The reconstructed series can be compared to the historical series, highlighting the different capabilities of the Italian average and of the Region Emilia...

Ecofin and Oecd methodology is used to reconstruct the historical evolution of public current health care expenditure for Italy and Lazio (an Italian Region). The reconstructed evolutions allow to detect what have been the per-capita expenditures per age brackets in absolute values (Euro) in...

This paper argues that the Social Security OASDI Trust Fund is widely misunderstood by the public, thereby corrupting the debate on how to handle future scheduled benefits, and increasing the risk of program changes that would not be accepted if people understood how the program functions. The...

In this article, we estimate the total earnings losses of male workers with a partial disability, i.e., they are able to work in a different occupation after disability onset. We use a Spanish administrative dataset (Muestra Continua de Vidas Laborales) from a specific partial disability pension...