The typical social security program is designed as follows: (1) It is organized as a pay-asyou-go system. (2) It is financed with a payroll tax. (3) Employers and employees share the tax. (4) Benefits are largely independent of asset income. (5) Benefits are increasing with the taxes paid. (6)...

I survey the advice given by the fifty most popular personal finance books and compare it to the prescriptions of normative academic economic models. Popular advice frequently departs from normative principles derived from economic theory, which should motivate new hypotheses about why...

Introduction / Alice H. Munnell -- Values, politics, and economics in social security reform. A framework for considering social security reform / Michael J. Boskin -- The economics of social security reform / Peter A. Diamond -- A political science perspective on social security reform / Hugh...