We develop a new methodology for finding optimal government policies in economies with heterogeneous agents. The methodology is solely based on three classes of equilibrium conditions from the government's and individual agent's optimization problems: 1) the first order conditions; 2) the...

We calibrate the model to the U.S. economy in order to quantify these policies and evaluate their impact in the transition and in the steady state. We find that, when the optimal schooling policies are implemented jointly with the optimal income taxes then they are negligible and their effect is...

In this paper we develop a new general methodology for computing the optimal, welfare maximizing social planner's policies for economies with heterogeneous agents in which the stationary distribution of agents is a part of the optimization problem. Previous models analyzing the effects of...

The welfare gains from the elimination of social security seem to more than compensate the agents for the lost insurance against life-span and earnings risks.

Abstract This paper provides a general methodology for introducing capital accumulation into economies with private information and heterogeneous agents. The agents operate a stochastic neoclassical production technology with capital and labor input. I study a moral hazard economy with...

We analyze the effects of persecution and labor market discrimination during the communist regime in the former Czechoslovakia using a representative life history sample from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. We find strong effects of persecution and dispossession on...

We analyze the extent and effects of job-related persecution under communist regimes in the Czech Republic and Poland using a representative sample of individuals aged 50+ from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. Retrospective information collected in the SHARELIFE interview...