The purpose of this paper is to review the recent evidence on the antipoverty effectiveness and other characteristics of income maintenance systems for the elderly in the rich nations of the world. As we move toward Social Security reform in the United States, we do so knowing that a...

We study the effect of a declining labor force on the incentives to engage in labor-saving technical change and ask how this effect is influenced by institutional characteristics of the pension scheme. When labor is scarcer it becomes more expensive and innovation investments that increase labor...

We study the effect of a declining labor force on the incentives to engage in labor-saving technical change and ask how this effect is influenced by institutional characteristics of the pension scheme. When labor is scarcer it becomes more expensive and innovation investments that increase labor...

As his new term begins, President George W. Bush has been trying to focus his domestic agenda on what he calls the ownership society, a sweeping vision of an America in which more citizens would hold significant assets and be free to make their own choices about providing for their health care...

The purpose of this study is to provide an alternate approach to studies of the rhetoric of policy-relevant economics. Martin Feldstein's pro-privatization rhetoric relative to Social Security is first analyzed. A subsequent comparison his rhetoric to that of George W. Bush concludes that both...

The partial privatization of the US Social Security system was clearly the top economic policy priority for the new Bush administration. While many famous economists, publicists and politicians support, others reject the partial privatization of the Social Security system. The international...

When policy discussions turn to income provisions for the old-aged, the focus is often on Social Security programs and the long-term solvency of national public pension systems. While Social Security remains the most important income source for the non-working elderly in the United States,...