Many EU states have adjusted pension benefits or reformed the pension system in reaction to the recent economic crisis, while other member states have postponed this type of adjustments. In this paper we analyse the welfare effects of these different reactions to the crisis in an economic union....

This paper proposes a simple, fast and direct nonparametric test to verify if a sample is drawn from a distribution with a finite first moment. The method can also be applied to test for the existence of finite moments of another order by taking the sample to the corresponding power. The test is...

This paper studies the spillover effects of pension reform in a a two-country two-overlapping-generations model with capital and labour mobility. A stable equilibrium is achieved assuming the presence of an immobile production factor. The long-run effects of pension reform are derived...

Does religiosity make you happy? Many studies document positive associations between religiosity and various forms of subjective wellbeing. This is also true for general life satisfaction in normal economic conditions and in the case of economic shocks. However, both life satisfaction and...

The paper presents a large scale overlapping generation model with heterogeneous agents, where the family is the decision unit. We calibrate the model for three European countries – France, Italy and Sweden – which show marked differences in the design of some public programs. We examine the...

This paper presents a simple condition for optimal asymmetric labour (capital) taxation/subsidization in a two-sector model with logarithmic utilities and Cobb-Douglas production functions, linked to demographic factors: fertility rate and longevity. The paper shows that depending on parameter...