In this paper, we analyze how the introduction of habits and aspirations affects the distribution of wealth when individuals’ labor productivity is subject to idiosyncratic shocks and bequests arise from a joy-of-giving motive. In the presence of either bequests or aspirations, labor income...

In this paper, we analyze how the introduction of habits and aspirations affects the distribution of wealth when individuals' labor productivity is subject to idiosyncratic shocks and bequests arise from a joy-of-giving motive. In the presence of either bequests or aspirations, labor income...

In this paper, we analyze how the introduction of habits and aspirations affects the distribution of wealth when individuals labor productivity is subject to idiosyncratic shocks and bequests arise from a joy-of-giving motive. In the presence of either bequests or aspirations, labor income...

Many political economic theories use and emphasize the process of voting in their explanation of the growth of Social Security, government spending, and other public policies. But is there an empirical connection between democracy and Social Security program size or design? Using some new...

Why are the old politically successful? We build a simple interest group model in which political pressure is time-intensive, showing that in the political competitive equilibrium each group lobbies for government policies that lower their own value of time but the old do so to a greater extent...

166 countries have some kind of public old age pension. What economic forces create and sustain old age Social Security as a public program? Mulligan and Sala-i-Martin (1999b) document several of the internationally and historically common features of social security programs, and explore...

166 countries have some kind of public old age pension. What economic forces create and sustain old age Social Security as a public program? We document some of the internationally and historically common features of Social Security programs including explicit and implicit taxes on labor supply,...

We propose a positive theory that is consistent with two important features of social security programs around the world: (1) they redistribute income from young to old and (2) they induce retirement. We construct a voting model that includes a “political campaign” or “debate” prior to...

In this paper we use a variety of data sources, both micro and macro, time series, cross section, and panel data to provide an empirical evaluation of the current level of economic wellbeing of the Spanish elderly, and of its determinants. We focus, in particular on the role played by the...