This paper analyzes the impact of aging on capital accumulation and welfare in a country with a sizable unfunded social security system. Using a two-period overlapping-generation model with endogenous retirement decisions, we show that both the type of aging and the type of unfunded social...

The purpose of this letter is to analyze the impact of economic integration on capital accumulation and capital flows when countries differ in their social security systems, especially as regards the degree of funding of pensions and the regulation of the retirement age. Funding and early...

Social insurance for the elderly is judged responsible for the widely observed trend towards early retirement. In a world of laissez-faire or in a first-best setting, there would be no such trend. However, when first-best instruments are not available, because health and productivity are not...

Among the rationales for social security, there is the fact that some people have to be forced to save. To explain undersaving, rational prodigality and hyperbolic preferences are often cited but treated separably. In this paper we study those two particular behaviors that lead to forced saving...

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical evaluation of theoretical models showing that shifting from pay-as-you-go to funded social security schemes can be made Pareto-improving. Further, it argues that what often makes a reform toward funded schemes attractive is a number of...

This paper studies the determination through majority voting of a pension scheme when society consists of far-sighted and myopic individuals. All individuals have the same basic preferences but myopics tend to adopt a short term view (instant gratification) when dealing with retirement saving....

We consider a two-period overlapping generations model in which individual voters differ not only according to age but also productivity. In such a setting, a (redistributive) Pay-As-You-Go system is politically sustainable, even when the interest rate is larger than the rate of population...

This paper studies the design of a nonlinear social security scheme in a society where individuals differ in two respects: productivity and degree of myopia. Myopic individuals may not save "enough" for their retirement because their "myopic self" emerges when labor supply and savings decisions...

This paper studies the optimal linear pension scheme when society consists of rational and myopic individuals. Myopic individuals have, ex ante, a strong preference for the present even though, ex post, they would regret not to have saved enough. While rational and myopic persons share the same...