December 1995 <p>We explore signaling behavior in settings with a discriminating signal and several costly nondiscriminating ("money burning") activities. In settings where informed parties have many options for burning money, existing theory provides no basis for selecting one nondiscriminating...</p>

We explore signaling behavior in settings with a discriminating signal and several costly nondiscriminating ( money burning ) activities. In settings where informed parties have many options for burning money, existing theory provides no basis for selecting one nondiscriminating activity over...

We explore signaling behavior in settings with a discriminating signal and several costly nondiscriminating ( money burning ) activities. In settings where informed parties have many options for burning money, existing theory provides no basis for selecting one nondiscriminating activity over...

In this survey, I summarize and evaluate the extant literature concerning taxation and personal saving. I describe the theoretical models that economists have used to depict saving decisions, and I explore the positive and normative implications of these models. The central positive question is...

This paper offers a new explanation of the dividend puzzle, based upon a model in which firms attempt to signal profitability by distrubuting cash to shareholders. I assume that dividends and repurchases are identical, except that dividends are taxed more heavily. Nevertheless, I demonstrate...

This paper presents new empirical evidence in support of the view that a significant fraction of total saving is motivated solely by the desire to leave bequests. Specifically, I find that Social Security annuity benefits significantly raise life insurance holdings and depress private annuity...

In this paper, I outline and test a simple theory that describes the evolution of expectations concerning social security benefits during the pre-retirement period. After correcting for the presences of measurement error, I obtain results that are consistent with this theory: expectations appear...

In evaluating the existing theory and evidence on Ricardian equivalence, it is essential to distinguish between the short run effects of government borrowing (primarily the potential for stimulating aggregate demand) and the long run effects (primarily the potential for depressing capital...

In this paper, I employ data drawn from the Social Security Administration's Retirement History Survey (RHS) to study the accuracy of expectations concerning the timing of retirement. The RHS is ideally suited for this purpose, in that it collects information on retirement plans, and follows...

In this paper, I show that, under relatively weak conditions, dynastic equilibria are never welfare optima. If a social planner sets policy to maximize a social welfare function, then, except in extreme cases where the planner cares only about a single generation, successive generations will...