The paper contains a survey and analysis of two debates between Wicksell and a number of Swedish economists concerning the cumulative process. The debates illustrate various problems with the analytical formulation of the cumulative process and how these problems were dealt with by the...

We classify social security pension systems in three dimensions: actuarial versus non-actuarial, funded versus unfunded, and defined-benefit versus defined-contribution systems. Recent pension reforms are discussed in terms of these dimensions. Shifting to a more actuarial system reduces...

This paper demonstrates how time consistency of the Ramsey policy (the optimal fiscal and monetary policy under commitment) can be achieved. Each government should leave its successor with a unique maturity structure for the nominal and indexed debt, such that the marginal benefit of a surprise...