We compare two institutions head on, a family compact – a parent makes a transfer to her parent in anticipation of a possible future gift from her children – with a pay-as-you-go, social security system in a lifecycle model with endogenous fertility wherein children are valued both as...

In the classic Meltzer and Richard (1981) model, the canonical model of income redistribution in democracies, voters, heterogeneous on the sole dimension of idiosyncratic productivity,evaluate an income redistributive program that pays everyone a lump-sum income subsidy financed by a distorting...

We compare two institutions head on, a family compact – a parent makes a transfer to her parent in anticipation of a possible future gift from her children – with a pay-as-you-go, social security system in a lifecycle model with endogenous fertility wherein children are valued both as...

Evidence supports the notion that those who grow up to be patient dobetter than those who do not. Parents can inculcate the virtue of delayedgratiÂ…cation in their children by taking the right actions. We study a modelin which parents, for selÂ…sh reasons, invest resources to raise patient...

Evidence supports the notion that those who grow up to be patient do better than those who do not. Parents can inculcate the virtue of delayed gratification in their children by taking the right actions. We study a model in which parents, for selfish reasons, invest resources to raise patient...