In this book Peter Diamond analyzes social security as a particular example of optimal taxation theory. Assuming a world of incomplete markets and asymmetric information, he uses a variety of simple models to illuminate the economic forces that bear on specific social security policy issues. The...

After presenting the Gruber-Wise analysis showing a strong effect on retirement of implicit taxes from pension rules, it is shown that there is no effect of these implicit taxes on unemployment. This supports the argument for avoiding high implicit taxes on continued work. Also discussed are...

The largest entitlement program in the United States today is the Social Security program (SS). We provide an overview of the interaction between the SS system and retirement behavior. We begin by documenting historical trends in labor force participation and program receipt, and contemporaneous...