Using an overlapping generations model with endogenous but uncertain longevity, this article analyzes the effects of public old-age pensions on longevity choice and capital accumulation. When agents are not altruistic, increases in old-age pensions are longevity-neutral for golden rule economies...

The excess burden of taxation typically has two graphical representations in undergraduate microeconomics and public finance textbooks: the IC/BC (indifference curve/budget constraint) representation and the demand/supply representation. The IC/BC representation has the advantage of showing the...

This article evaluates the Social Security outcomes for different racial and education groups. Outcomes differ across groups due to the interactions between group-specific mortality risks and lifetime earnings, the benefit formula, and the benefit package, which includes life insurance, spousal...

We use a simple lifetime utility maximization model to study the problem of medical resource allocation. This model leads to a welfare specification with a QALY (quality-adjusted life-year) component that captures an individual's preferences over both life expectancy and health status. The goal...

Federal discount rate policies advocate both a high rate representing the marginal productivity of capital and a low rate representing the government borrowing rate. These differential discount rate policies could be inconsistent and biased in favor of projects on which the lower discount rate...

The conventional measure of the excess burden of a discrete increase in the rate of either a labor income tax or an excise tax is typically represented by a trapezoid in the supply/demand framework. This article adopts an alternative view of the incremental excess burden due to Mayshar and finds...