We investigate the effects of extending the coverage of social security to uncovered elderly individuals in the informal sector in developing countries. We use a stochastic overlapping generations framework and incorporate important characteristics of developing countries including family...

In Brazil generous public sector pensions have induced civil servants to retire on average at age 55. In this paper we use an OLG model to assess the effects of such policy induced early retirement on capital accumulation and long-run income levels. We calibrate the model to data from Brazil and...

We analyze whether a consumer driven health care plan like the newly established Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) can reduce health care expenditures in the United States and increase the fraction of the population with health insurance. Unlike previous literature, our analysis relies on a dynamic...

Increases in government spending trigger substitution effects—both inter- and intra-temporal—and a wealth effect. The ultimate impacts on the econ- omy hinge on current and expected monetary and fiscal policy behavior. Studies that impose active monetary policy and passive fiscal policy...

The period September 2008 - March 2009 encompassed that part of the long-festering financial crisis severe enough to leave troubling legacies for the conduct of economic policies. Executive discretion in economic governance hurriedly expanded and centralized to address the depth of the crisis....

In this lecture, I argue that there are remarkable parallels between how monetary and fiscal policies operate on the macro economy and that these parallels are sufficient to lead us to think about transforming fiscal policy and fiscal institutions as many countries have transformed monetary...

This paper contributes to the debate about fiscal multipliers by studying the impacts of government investment in conventional neoclassical growth models. The analysis focuses on two dimensions of fiscal policy that are critical for understanding the effects of government investment:...

Increases in government spending trigger substitution effects—both inter- and intra-temporal—and a wealth effect. The ultimate impacts on the econ- omy hinge on current and expected monetary and fiscal policy behavior. Studies that impose active monetary policy and passive fiscal policy...

We examine quantitatively why uniform vouchers have repeatedly su¤ered electoral defeats against the current system where public and private schools coexist. We argue that the topping-up option available under uniform vouchers is not sufficiently valuable for the poorer households to prefer the...

There is a long-run `Beveridge Curve' in the Housing market given by the negative relationship between the vacancy rate of housing and the rate of household formation. This is true in the owner-occupied market, the rental market, and the total market for housing irrespective of ownership status....