A partly heuristic attempt is made to explore long-run policies aimed at a second-best compromise between ex ante risk-sharing efficiency and ex post productive efficiency. Wage subsidies for low-skilled workers financed by taxes on high wages are advocated, together with improved risk sharing...

In a recent paper in this journal, Bloom, Canning and Graham (2003) model the effect of changes in longevity on individual savings. They proceed to present empirical findings about the relation between longevity and "aggregate savings." There is a missing link between their empirics and theory:...