This book studies the normative and positive ramifications of public pension policies in a growing economy. It analyzes the impact of an unfunded public pension scheme on aggregate productivity growth and efficiency, it considers the political forces behind public pension legislation, and it...

Demographic trends in most developed economies are characterized by rising longevity and decreasing birthrates. These trends endanger the sustainability of the current public pension systems. Therefore social security reform proposals are on the agenda in many countries. This paper demonstrates...

We examine the impact of a stylized pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) Social Security program in an economy of overlapping generations with equilibrium growth. We adopt realistic mortality and other demographic assumptions and allow for the presence or absence of full life annuities. In all cases we find...