Working-age Americans work longer hours than adults in other industrialized countries. At the same time, the United States. has one of the least equal income distributions of any rich country. This paper provides a cross-national analysis of the impact of the exceptional U.S. income distribution...

A popular proposal for reforming social security is to supplement or replace traditional publicly financed benefits with a new system of mandatory defined-contribution private pensions. Proponents claim that private plans offer better returns than traditional social security. To achieve higher...