This paper addresses two policy questions with respect to public defined benefit (DB) pension schemes: Firstly, does a funded DB pension scheme increase welfare? In other words: do the gains from intergenerational sharing of capital market risks outweigh the labour market distortions from...

This paper explores possible alternatives for the current Dutch first pillar pension scheme (AOW). It presents the welfare, labour market, saving and unintended bequest effects of a shift from a Beveridge towards a Bismarck system in which the pension rights depend on the labour market history....

We construct a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with overlapping generations in order to analyze the optimality of means-testing pension benefits in the UK. While previous studies only consider the long-run welfare effects of alternative policy reforms, we compute the full transition...