Several important empirical studies (for example, Altonji, Hayashi, and Kotlikoff, 1992, 1996, 1997) have found that households are not altruistically linked in a way consistent with the standard Ricardian model, as put forward by Barro (1974). We built a two-sided altruistic-linkage model in...

The economic literature shows that privatizing Social Security can improve labor supply incentives, but it can also reduce risk sharing when households face uninsurable risks. We simulate a stylized 50-percent privatization with transaction costs financed by consumption taxes and examined its...

Fundamental tax reform is examined in a heterogeneous overlapping-generations life-cycle model in which agents face idiosyncratic earnings shocks and uncertain life spans. Following Auerbach and Kotlikoff (1987), a lump-sum redistribution authority is used to examine efficiency gains over the...

Baby boomers are now retiring in large numbers, and most do not have enough assets of their own to finance retirement. Social insurance programs help baby boomers afford retirement, but these programs are substantially underfunded. Reforming these institutions earlier will produce fewer...

The United States Social Security system is fairly unique in that it explicitly allows for a progressive formulation of retirement benefits by assigning a larger replacement rate to workers with small pre-retirement wages. In contrast, the public pension systems in other countries often replace...

While privatizing Social Security can improve labor supply incentives, it can also reduce risk sharing when households face uninsurable risks. We simulate a stylized 50-percent privatization using an overlapping-generations model where heterogenous agents with elastic labor supply face...

Several important empirical studies (e.g., Altonji, Hayashi, and Kotlikoff, 1992, 1996, 1997) find that households are not altruistically-linked in a way consistent with the standard Ricardian model, as put forward by Barro (1974). We build a two-sided altruistic-linkage model in which private...

While privatizing social security can improve labor supply incentives, it can also reduce risk sharing. We analyze a 50% privatization using an overlapping-generations model where heterogeneous agents with elastic labor supply face idiosyncratic earnings shocks and longevity uncertainty. When...

While privatizing Social Security can improve labor supply incentives, it can also reduce risk sharing when households face uninsurable risks. We simulate a stylized 50-percent privatization using an overlapping-generations model where heterogeneous agents with elastic labor supply face...