A rational expectations framework is developed to study the consequences of alternative means to resolve the "unfunded liabilities" problem - unsustainable exponential growth in federal Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid spending with no plan to finance it. Resolution requires specifying a...

This paper examines whether social expenditure cushions the effect of globalization on within-country inequality, and whether this relationship varies across OECD and non-OECD countries. Using several measures of social protection from OECD and the World Bank, we analyze separately the role of...

La Belgique est un des pays européens où le coin fiscal et parafiscal sur les revenus du travail est le plus élevé tandis que le taux d'emploi y est plus faible que la moyenne européenne. Elle est également caractérisée par le rôle prédominant exercé par les cotisations sociales dans...

The paper provides a theoretical rationale for flexicurity policies, which consist of low employment protection, generous unemployment insurance and active labor market programmes. It analyzes in which conditions flexicurity can be optimal. Low employment protection encourages costly education...

Exploiting official historical records of the German Bundestag and Bundesrat, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and the German statutory pension insurance scheme, we construct a narrative of legislated social security changes for Germany between 1970 and 2013 in order to identify...

Reforms to the Italian social security system, carried out from 1992 onwards, will dramatically change its structure in the long run. So far, empirical research has devoted more attention to their macroeconomic and financial effects while relatively less attention has been paid to analyzing...

This paper investigates the political incentives for the design of a Pay-as-you-go public pension system in a probabilistic voting model with both far-sighted and myopic agents. People vote for a payroll tax rate determining the size of the pension system and a Bismarckian factor representing...

We investigate the dynamic general equilibrium effects of introducing a social assistance program to elderly informal sector workers in developing countries. We find that the extension of such ldquo;retirement benefitsrdquo; in environments with lacking private sector risk-sharing mechanisms...