Conventional pension systems suffer from a design defect which makes them financially unsustainable, and a source of inefficiency for the economy as a whole. The paper outlines a second-best policy which includes a public pension system made up of two parallel schemes, a Bismarckian one allowing...

Conventional pension systems suffer from a design defect, which makes them financially unsustainable, and a source of inefficiency for the economy as a whole. The article outlines a second-best policy which includes a public pension system made up of two parallel schemes, a Bismarckian one...

A Beveridgean pension scheme invariably introduces a wedge between the wage rate and the marginal take-home pay. A Bismarckian one can do so only if it is not actuarially fair, or in the presence of credit rationing. Interestingly, if the two possible sources of distortion are present at the...

Conventional pension systems suffer from a design defect which makes them financially unsustainable, and a source of inefficiency for the economy as a whole. The paper outlines a second-best policy which includes a public pension system made up of two parallel schemes, a Bismarckian one allowing...

The rapidly aging populations of many developed countries--most notably Japan and member countries of the European Union--present obvious problems for the public pension plans of these countries. Not only will there be disproportionately fewer workers making pension contributions than there are...