We investigate intergenerational risk sharing in two-pillar pension systems with a pay-as-you-go pillar and a funded pillar. We consider shocks in productivity, depreciation of capital and inflation. The funded pension pillar can be either defined contribution or defined benefit, with benefits...

Starting from a simple, descriptive model of individual income, an explicit link between the age composition of a population and the personal distribution of incomes is established. Demographic effects on income inequality are derived. Next, a pay-as-you-go financed state pension system is...

The paper reviews recent research on the impact of an aging population on the distribution of income. After briefly discussing the demographic conditions responsible for population aging, a short account is given of demographic trends in the industrialized world. In order to disentangle the many...

In 1998, the Swiss voters approved of an increase in female retirement age from 62 to 64. The referendum, being on a single issue only, offers a unique opportunity to explore the political feasibility of pension reforms and to apply theoretical models of life-cycle decision making. Estimates...

Private pension provision faces the challenging task of providing stable income streams during retirement. The challenge has increased markedly in the last decades due to volatile financial markets, falling interest rates and the withdrawal of employers and external insurers as risk bearers of...

We explore intergenerational and international risk sharing in a general equilibrium multiple-country model with two-tier pensions systems. The exact design of the funded tier is key for the way in which risks are shared over the various generations. The laissez-faire market solution fails to...

This paper explores the optimal risk sharing arrangement between generations in an overlapping generations model with endogenous growth. We allow for nonseparable preferences, paying particular attention to the risk aversion of the old as well as overall 'life-cycle' risk aversion. We provide a...

We analyse the impact of micro-founded political institutions on environmental policy and economic growth. We model an overlapping-generations economy, where individuals differ in preferences over the environment (as well as in age). Labour taxation and capital taxation is used to finance a...

Is there an economic rationale for pronatalist policies? In this paper we propose and analyze a particular market failure that may lead to inefficiently low equilibrium fertility and therefore to a need for government intervention. The friction we investigate is related to the ownership of...

In an analysis of the risk-sharing properties of different types of pension systems, we show that only fixed-fee pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension systems can provide risk sharing for living individuals. Under some circumstances, however, other PAYG pension systems can enhance the expected welfare of...