We compare two institutions head on, a family compact – a parent makes a transfer to her parent in anticipation of a possible future gift from her children – with a pay-as-you-go, social security system in a lifecycle model with endogenous fertility wherein children are valued both as...

A growing literature explores reasons for rising wealth inequality, but disregards the role of pension systems despite their well-understood infiuence on life-cycle saving. In theory and according to available evidence, both pay-as-you-go (PAYG) and fully-funded (FF) pension schemes crowd out...

This paper revisits the role played by myopia in generating a theoretical rationale for pay-as-you-go social security in dynamically efficient economies. Contrary to received wisdom, if the real interest rate is exogenously fixed, enough myopia may justify public pensions but never alongside...