Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we compare the pay of workers employed on the minimum wage contour to the pay of similar workers in other jobs. We also examine whether the minimum wage increases of 1990 and 1991 narrow the pay gap. We find that characteristics of...

One-period models predict that a substantial welfare gain would result from removing the social security earnings test. In this article, we show that such models overestimate the size of potential gains. If one uses instead a two-period model, which captures intertemporal effects, the net result...

China has both mandatory and voluntary individual account pensions that are provided through the government. The experience of China makes a particularly interesting case study concerning the functioning of individual accounts in that its mandatory individual accounts have been defunded to pay...

Countries around the world are reforming their social security and pension systems. International studies often focus on social security reforms in Europe and North America, and may include Latin America. Reforms, however, are also occurring in Asia and Africa, and include reforms of voluntary...

This paper analyzes gender issues with respect to public pensions in China. Because provision of public pensions in China is highly fragmented, with different programs applying to different groups of people, we focus on the largest mandatory public pension program in urban China, the Urban...