One key assumption underlying interventions and policies aiming to promote development by increasing the accumulation of human capital, particularly health capital, is that increasing access to and utilisation of health services will translate into health capital. This assumption, from...

We estimate a stochastic life-cycle model of endogenous health spending, asset accumulation and retirement to investigate the causes behind the increase in health spending and longevity in the U.S. over the period 1965-2005. We estimate that technological change and the increase in the...

In earlier literature, the suggested Pareto improvements in pay-as-you-go (PAYG) systems have relied on the presence of externalities or the possibility of intragenerational redistribution. We show that neither assumption is necessary in an economy with intergenerational trade in a fixed factor...

Using a heterogeneous-agent, life-cycle model of Social Security claiming, labor supply and saving, we consider the implications of lifespan inequality for Social Security reform. Quantitative experiments show that welfare is maximized when baseline benefits are independent of lifetime earnings,...

This paper develops estimates of lifetime money's worth and redistributional outcomes under the Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) program for all past, present, and future birth cohorts affected by the program through the cohort born in 2100. The estimates presented in this study...

Categorical essence, structure, and multilevel institutional and functional foundations of the welfare state are discovered in the monograph. Criteria, chronological limits, and content of the stages of arising, creation, development, and descend of the welfare state with accounting of modern...

We study the effect of UI benefits in a typical developing country where the informal sector is sizeable and persistent. In a partial equilibrium environment we characterize the stationary equilibrium of an economy where policyholders may be employed in the formal sector, short-run unemployed...

This articles explores the history of federal SSI/SSDI benefits for those disabled by addictions, the competing definitions of addiction itself, and the policy rationales for repeated changes in the rules. I argue, as a policy matter, that addicts should be allowed to receive SSI/SSDI disability...

There is a strong intergenerational correlation in welfare participation, but this does not imply that parental welfare receipt induces child receipt. While there are a few quasi-experimental studies that provide estimates of the causal effect of parental welfare participation for children from...