The extent of the demographic changes in Europe is dramatic and will deeply affect future labor, financial and goods markets. The expected strain on public budgets and especially social security has already received prominent attention, but aging poses many other economic challenges that...

Many European countries have begun (or have announced) programs intended to reduce the growth of entitlement programs, in particular of public pensions. Current costs are high, and the pressures will increase due to population aging and negative incentive effects. This paper focuses on the...

Population aging and pension reform will have profound effects on international capital markets. First, demographic change alters the time path of aggregate savings within each country. Second this process may be amplified when a pension reform shifts old-age provision towards more pre-funding....

This paper estimates the effects on steady state retirement by men of changes in pension" plans and social security in the 1970's and 1980's. Work incentives associated with pension" coverage and plan characteristics are calculated primarily from the 1969-79 Retirement History" Study and the...

The aging of the population shakes the confidence in the economic viability of pay-as-you-go social security systems. We demonstrate how in a political-economy framework the shaken cofidence leads to the downsizing of the social security-system, and to the emergence of supplemental individual...

Projected demographic changes in industrialized and developing countries vary in extent and timing but will reduce the share of the population in working age everywhere. Conventional wisdom suggests that this will increase capital intensity with falling rates of return to capital and increasing...

A problem facing the United States is financing retirement consumption as its population ages. Proposals for switching to a saving-for-retirement system that do not rely on high payroll taxes have been challenged on the grounds that welfare for some cohorts will fall. We show how to devise a...

After presenting the Gruber-Wise analysis showing a strong effect on retirement of implicit taxes from pension rules, it is shown that there is no effect of these implicit taxes on unemployment. This supports the argument for avoiding high implicit taxes on continued work. Also discussed are...

The upcoming demographic crisis in Germany demands fundamental reforms of the pension system. In a democracy, reforms are, however, only feasible when they are supported by the majority of the electorate. To determine whether the majority is in favor of reforms of the pension system, we...

Around the world, Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) public pension programs face serious long-term fiscal problems due primarily to actual and projected population aging, and most appear unsustainable as currently structured. Some have proposed the replacement of such plans with systems of fully funded...