This paper looks at the relationship between the institutional design of the social security system and retirement from the labour force in three countries: Italy, Spain and the USA. Our work stresses the importance of dynamic incentives embedded in social security systems throughout the world...

This paper looks at the relationship between the institutional design of the social security system and retirement from the labour force in three countries: Italy, Spain and the USA. Our works stresses the importance of dynamic incentives embedded in social security systems throughout the world...

A reform process is under way in Italy. Achieving financial sustainability of the social security system has been the first objective characterizing the reforms of 1990s, but these have also introduced rules which aim at a more actuarially fair system. Indeed the social security system...

In this paper we ask what is the length of working life in Europe, whether it differs by gender, birth cohort, and schooling level, and what are the main differences across countries. We also ask whether there is a trend towards shorter working lives, and to what extent it is due to the delayed...

This paper looks at welfare reforms in Italy and their effects on labour supply. I focus on social security reforms, which have taken place in the 1990s and on labour market reforms. Old age social security expenditure in Italy is high (14% of GDP) and the system has been very generous on early...

"We address the issue of how early retirement may interact with limited use of financial markets in producing financial hardship later in life, when some risks (such as long-term care) are not insured. We argue that the presence of financially attractive early retirement schemes in a world of...

This paper uses the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to investigate the role of pension and social security institutions in shaping the European patterns of work and retirement. We provide evidence on the extent of “unused capacity” in labor force, on pathways to...

This paper shows that the “lump of labor” assumption fails in Italy. The direct relationship between the unemployment rate of the young and the labor force participation of the old is pro-cyclical, i.e. a higher labor force participation of the old is related to a lower unemployment rate of...

In this paper we investigate the size of the consumption drop at retirement in Italy. We use micro data on food and total non-durable household spending covering the period 1993-2004, and evaluate the change in consumption that accompanies retirement by exploiting the exogenous variability in...