A basic difference between a pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) public pension system and one with fully funded private accounts lies in the startup. From its inception, a PAYGO system can pass contributions from current workers to current retirees. A funded system must either spend decades accumulating tax...

A number of proposals and options to address OASI trust-fund solvency have been suggested in recent years. The present work attempts to examine solvency-promoting reforms from the standpoint of economic efficiency — that is, from the perspective of their effect on household and societal...

Two of the most basic frameworks which economists use for analyzing national saving and private wealth accumulation are the life-cycle model (e.g., Modigliani [1986]) and the so-called altruistic or dynastic model (e.g., Barro [1974] and Becker [1974]). In the first, households care about their...

We introduce a tractable model of post-retirement saving behavior in which households have a precautionary motive arising from uninsured health status risks. The model distinguishes between annuitized and non-annuitized wealth, emphasizes the importance of asset composition in determining...

We introduce a tractable model of post-retirement saving behavior in which households have a precautionary motive arising from uninsured health status risks. The model distinguishes between annuitized and non-annuitized wealth, emphasizes the importance of asset composition in determining...

Using pseudo-panel data, we estimate the structuralparameters of a life--cycle consumption model with discrete laborsupply choice. A focus of our analysis is the abrupt drop inconsumption upon retirement for a typical household. Theliterature sometimes refers to the drop, which in the...

This paper reviews four well known theoretical models of private bequest behavior, notes their differing implications for public policy, and discusses a way of empirically discriminating among them. Then it implements the test with micro data from Sweden (LLS) and the U.S. (PSID). The so-called...