It is often argued that the observed trend towards early retirement is due mainly to the implicit tax imposed on continued activity of elderly workers. We study the relevance of such a distortion in a political economy model with endogenous age of retirement. The setting is a two-period...

We assume that individual voters differ not only according to age but also productivity. In the steady state, workers with wages in the intermediate range join the retired persons to form a majority and vote for a positive level of social security. When a shock decreases population growth,...

We explain why wealthy people often favor estate taxation, while wealthless people oppose it. Wealthy people devote part of their estate to charities. Estate taxation with tax breaks for charities increases contributions to an otherwise underprovided public good.