This study investigates (i) how unfunded public pensions financed by VAT, as discussed in Japan, affect economic growth, and (ii) whether payroll tax or VAT is the more growth-friendly tax structure for the finance of public pensions. We examine these issues in overlapping generations (OLG)...

: The euro crisis has threatened the balance of social structures, through the impoverishment of the middle class, in almost all countries of the Old Continent. This trend has not only posed a threat to social cohesion, but it also threats the very nature of the so-called Western-style...

Abstract We study optimal savings policies when there is a dual concern about undersaving for retirement and income inequality. Agents differ in present bias and earnings ability, both unobservable to a planner with paternalistic and redistributive motives. We characterize the solution to this...

The financial collapse of 2007, the accompanying refugee crisis, the health crisis, and the coronavirus pandemic have all played their part in the current gloomy political climate. The left lacks a clear message or strategy to improve the lives of ordinary people. The emphasis on austerity and...

The financial crisis of 2007 clearly demonstrated the declining economic and political hegemony of the European social model. Austerity measures, rationalization, and cuts in all areas of society and the state were encouraged by the EU directorates. These measures have weakened social cohesion...

The demographic database of Eurostat and of Us Census of Bureau are explored and the main facts are extracted and described. This paper is completely self-standing but is also part of a more general analysis dedicated to the functioning and sustainability of pay-as-you-go to finance the welfare...

The design of an adequate pension system is a very complex because it must contemplate multiple objectives. Must be inclusive, reduce poverty in old age, providing appropriate incentives in the labor market, increasing the aggregate savings of the economy, the ability to smooth consumption...

Our paper sets an endogenous fertility model and examines how tax revenues derived from a consumption tax should be used for social security benefits such as pension and child-care policies. An additional pension financed by a consumption tax can achieve Pareto-improving allocations. Child...

In economically developed countries, aging societies with fewer children are progressing. Increased longevity has necessitated postponement of the working retirement age. Our paper presents an examination of how subsidies for an elderly labor supply affect the elderly labor supply. Our paper...

We estimate the growth and utility effects of switching from a graduated-rate federal income tax to a flat tax along the lines of Hall-Rabushka (1995). We, furthermore, calculate the post-reform transition dynamics for a number of variables, including the economic growth rate, the representative...