Social Security provides insurance against idiosyncratic income risk but exposes workers to systematic risk because benefits are indexed to the evolution of aggregate earnings. I calibrate a life-cycle model to compare workers' certainty equivalent valuation of Social Security to its net present...

This paper analyses government instruments in terms of reducing market inequality. Government redistribution, realized through public spending and taxation, could be considered as a key element in order to ensure a more equal distribution of income between households. The first part of the paper...