The first pillars of social security systems differ widely across European countries both in the contribution rate and intra-generational redistribution. What would the impact of these differences be if EU citizens had free access to all systems? This paper aims to highlight some basic features...

The first pillars of social security systems differ widely across European countries both in the contribution rate and intra-generational redistribution. What would the impact of these differences be if EU citizens had free access to all systems? This paper aims to highlight some basic features...

In a second best environment, the optimal policy choice sometimes follows the first best rules. This note lays down the information structure and separability assumptions under which this property holds in a variety of setups. -- separability ; second best optimality ; indirect taxes ; Samuelson...