I examine if the positive correlation between wealth and survivorship has any implications for the progressivity of Social Security's current benefit-earnings rule. Using a general-equilibrium macroeconomic model calibrated to the U.S. economy, I show that the optimal benefit-earnings link for...

There exists a wide variety of tax treatments of pensions across the world. And the reasons for such a range of regimes are not clear. This note reviews the general principles of pension taxes and analyses the theoretical foundations of why pension incomes ought to be taxed specifically. To do...

There exists a wide variety of tax treatments of pensions across the world. And the reasons for such a range of regimes are not clear. This note reviews the general principles of pension taxes and analyses the theoretical foundations of why pension incomes ought to be taxed specifically. To do...

This paper presents the results of the actuarial valuation method Projected Unit Credit ("benefits/years of service") in order to assess the effects of the public sector downsizing on real economy and social security in Greece, using a prototype data set. We found a social security loss of about...

This paper discusses the gap in own old-age incomes of men and women and explores the causes for these differences by means of decomposition methods using German micro-data of the survey 'Alterssicherung in Deutschland' (ASID). The Gender Pension Gap has decreased but still amounts to about 60%...

When markets are incomplete, social security can partially insure against idiosyncratic and aggregate risks. We incorporate both risks into an analytically tractable model with two overlapping generations and demonstrate that they interact over the life-cycle. The interactions appear even though...