When the age of death is uncertain, individuals will leave bequestseven if they have no desired bequestssimply because they will hold wealth against the possibility of living longer. Bequests are accidental. Starting from a baseline level of Social Security benefits, an increase in benefits will...

When the age of death is uncertain, individuals will leave bequests - even if they have no desired bequests - simply because they will hold wealth against the possibility of living longer. Bequests are accidental. Starting from a baseline level of Social Security benefits, an increase in...

We consider three transfer models with a representative individual who discounts the utility of the merit good with respect to the standard one's. In each model, a paternalistic government taxes the consumer and transfers him additional merit goods in return. The private purchase of the merit...

As it evolves around the world, Social Security financed on pay-as-you-go (PAYG) basis increasingly becomes a Ponzi scheme due to aging populations. The main objective of Social Security is to insure seniors against an uncertain life span. However, as the probability of being a net loser rises...

I examine if the positive correlation between wealth and survivorship has any implications for the progressivity of Social Security's current benefit-earnings rule. Using a general-equilibrium macroeconomic model calibrated to the U.S. economy, I show that the optimal benefit-earnings link for...

A well-established result in the literature is that Social Security tends to reduce steady state welfare in a standard life cycle model. However, less is known about the historical effects of the program on agents who were alive when the program was adopted. In a computational life cycle model...