A key figure which can be applied to measuring inter-generational imbalances involved in existing public pension schemes is given by the "implicit tax" that is levied on each generation's life-time income through participation in these systems. The implicit tax arises from the fact that, quite...

For each year of work under the Social Security System, immigrants realize a higher benefit than U.S. born, even when their earnings are identical in all years the immigrant has been in the U.S. Two features of the social security benefit calculation are responsible for the relatively favorable...

Using newly collected data on over 100 state-administered pension plans, this Article shows that previously overlooked differences in institutional design are associated with the striking variation in funding discipline across U.S. public pension plans. As state and local governments grapple...

As part of an ongoing effort to analyze the distributional implications of potential policy reforms to the U.S. Social Security system, we consider the widely discussed reform of earnings sharing. Such an approach has been viewed as a way to “update” Social Security's family benefits based...

Imagine: You are a public pension fund trustee, employee or investment advisor. The legislature of your state passes a law that requires you to divest some or all of your stock holdings in companies that do business with a specific country. You seek the advice of an outside research firm that...

The reform of pension systems is on the political agenda in most European countries and in the USA. The paper considers the main factors underlying the reform process and examines the reforms introduced in recent years and those currently under discussion in order to trace common features, but...

Both the United States and Australia have multi-pillar retirement systems that include a public component and a private component. Increasingly, the private component consists of a defined contribution plan. At the outset, this paper provides an overview of the retirement systems of the U.S. and...

We study a choice made by over 20,000 U.S. military personnel annually between the High-3 and Redux retirement plans. Compared to High-3, Redux offers a $30,000 current lump sum payment in exchange for lower future annuity payments. Despite break-even discount rates between 10% and 25%, about...

Though Social Security is typically considered a program to support retirees, nearly one in ten children live in a home with Social Security income. Children are substantially more likely to live with an older adult than they were two decades ago, and they are twice as likely to report Social...

This paper compares fully-funded (FF) and pay-as-you-go (paygo) pension plans in a Keynesian framework for an economy with overlapping generations and excess capacity. The model addresses both short/medium-run equilibria and steady-states. Income distribution and class conflict, two crucial...