We study policy reforms aimed at overhauling retirement financing. We develop a novel approach by considering optimal reforms: policy reforms that minimize the cost for the government while respecting the distribution of welfare in the economy. Our model is an OLG model with life-cycle features...

Abstract We study Pareto optimal policy reforms aimed at overhauling retirement financing as an integral part of the tax and transfer system. Our framework for policy analysis is a heterogeneous-agent overlapping-generations model that performs well in matching the aggregate and distributional...

We study the quantitative properties of constrained efficient allocations in an environment where risk sharing is limited by the presence of private information. We consider a life cycle version of a standard Mirrlees economy where shocks to labor productivity have a component that is public...

This paper studies the Rothschild and Stiglitz (1976) adverse selection environment, relaxing the assumption of exclusivity of insurance contracts. Agents can engage in multiple insurance contracts simultaneously, and the terms of these contracts are not observed by other firms. Insurance...

We study how the presence of non-exclusive contracts limits the amount of insurance provided in a decentralized economy. We consider a dynamic Mirrleesian economy in which agents are privately informed about idiosyncratic labor productivity shocks. Agents sign privately observable insurance...

In this chapter we revisit the relationship between income and fertility. There is overwhelming empirical evidence that fertility is negatively related to income in most countries at most times. Several theories have been proposed in the literature to explain this somewhat puzzling fact. The...

Demographers have long emphasized decreased mortality and `economic development' as the main contributors generating the demographic transition (DT). In economics, the Barro-Becker (BB) model of fertility choice, though simple and intuitive, has not been successful at reproducing changes in...

In this chapter we revisit the relationship between income and fertility. There is overwhelming empirical evidence that fertility is negatively related to income in most countries at most times. Several theories have been proposed in the literature to explain this somewhat puzzling fact. The...

The Barro-Becker model is a simple intuitive model of fertility choice. In its original formulation, however, it has not been very successful at reproducing the changes in fertility choice in response to decreased mortality and increased income growth that demographers have emphasized in...

The Barro-Becker model is a simple intuitive model of fertility choice. In its original formulation, however, it has not been very successful at reproducing the changes in fertility choice in response to decreased mortality and increased income growth that demographers have emphasized in...