The AR(1) process with gaussian innovations that is standard in life-cycle models of earnings dynamics has been found to be insufficient by recent evidence emphasizing the age-dependent and non-gaussian nature of changes in earnings. Empirical studies find that an AR(1) process with...

Private pension saving among the self-employed population in the UK has been falling dramatically over the last few decades, and this has led to a heightened policy focus on how to boost pension saving among this group. In this report we analyse patterns of private pension saving among the...

We use Norwegian administrative panel data on wealth and income between 1993 and 2015 to study lifecycle wealth dynamics, focusing on the wealthiest households. On average, the wealthiest start their lives substantially richer than other households in the same cohort, own mostly private equity,...

Earnings risk is central to economic analysis. While this risk is essentially subjective, it is typically inferred from administrative data. Following the lead of Dominitz and Manski (1997), we introduce a survey instrument to measure subjective earnings risk. We pay particular attention to the...

This thesis consists of three essays on dynamic household decisions over the life cycle and the estimation of parameters for the analysis. The topics include the estimation of income processes and progressive tax and transfer schedules in Chapter I, the savings and amortisation behaviour of...

We study the effects of work limiting health issues in combination with adverse local economic conditions on career advancement using a US panel data set that follows a cohort of people from 1987 (ages 22–30) to 2014 (ages 49–57). We find that work limiting health issues decrease the...

The unfunded social security has long been criticized for reducing capital stock and social welfare. In this paper, we study the aggregate and welfare effects of reforms that make social security tax (SST) age dependent. We characterize the optimal age-dependent SST schedule that maximizes...

What time periods should we use in tax and other fiscal policy to evaluate people’s circumstances, and thus to determine either how they are being treated, or how they ought to be? This question is both fundamental and pervasive.Standard economic reasoning offers grounds for entirely basing...