A dynamic model of consumer behavior that incorporates the demand for housing is specified such that it is consistent with the general purpose of a consumer price index. From this model a true cost-of-living index that includes housing is derived. Being an ideal index it cannot be computed...

Influenced by a major tax reform in the beginning of the 1990s and by the exceptional boom in the stock market at the end of this decade the level as well as the inequality of the wealth of Swedish households have increased. The large baby-boom cohorts of the 1940s have been successful in...

For the purpose of studying the consequences of the ageing of the Swedish population a group of scientists have enlarged the microsimulation model SESIM - originally developed at the Swedish Ministry of Finance - with modules that simulate health status, take up of sickness benefits, retirement,...

Reviewing trends in the Swedish distribution of wealth it is demonstrated that the baby-boom cohorts have become relatively wealthy, both in terms of private wealth and in claims on the pension system. Results from a simulation model suggest that the elderly in the future will no longer belong...

In practical applications of micro simulation models very little is usually known about the properties of the simulated values. This paper argues that we need to apply the same rigorous standards for inference in micro simulation work as in scientific work generally. If not, then micro...

Micro simulation involves modeling the behavior of individuals and other decision units taking into account the effects of policy parameters such as tax rates, eligibility rules for benefits and subsidies and compensation rates in the social security system. The model is simulated to analyze the...

There is a rising importance of human capital in the total capital stock of an economy. In this paper we discuss the nature of investments in children and sketch out the diverse kinds of inputs to the developmental process across different countries at selected time points. The observable inputs...

Micro-simulation is an approach to analyze the impact of economic and social policy on the distribution of target variables, not just on the means. It easily includes the true policy instruments and handles highly nonlinear relations. Most models currently used in policy analysis are static and...

Many Western countries with an aging population consider reforms of their pay-as-you-go pension systems. In Sweden a new pension system has already been decided and implemented. This paper gives a brief background to the Swedish reforms in the 1990s and explains the structure of the new system.

This paper focuses on three issues. First, it analyses the increasing inequality of wealth in Sweden in terms of percentile age and birth cohort differences. Second, it discusses mobility of wealth as a function of age, length of the transition period, the magnitude of quantile differences, and...