The overlapping generations model pioneered by Paul Samuelson is used to address an issue in Social Security. In the 1983 Social Security reform, Congress chose to build a substantial trust fund, with principal and interest both to be used for later benefits. That is, Congress chose payroll tax...

Social Security trust fund portfolio diversification to include some equities reduces the equity premium by raising the safe real interest rate. This requires changes in taxes. Under the hypothesis of constant marginal returns to risky investments, trust fund diversification lowers the price of...

Many political economic theories use and emphasize the process of voting in their explanation of the growth of Social Security, government spending, and other public policies. But is there an empirical connection between democracy and Social Security program size or design? Using some new...

We propose a positive theory that is consistent with two important features of social security programs around the world: (1) they redistribute income from young to old and (2) they induce retirement. We construct a voting model that includes a 'political campaign' or 'debate' prior to the...

This essay describes the current debate on reforming Social Security in the US, along with a brief description of how the program works. Along the way it comments on the quality of some proposed reform proposals as well as their political standing. Where issues are similar, some inferences are...