Pareto-Improving Social Security Reform when Financial Markets are Incomplete!?
American Economic Review
vol. 96,
no. 3, June 2006
(pp. 737-755)
Abstract
This paper studies an overlapping generations model with stochastic production and incomplete markets to assess whether the introduction of an unfunded social security system leads to a Pareto improvement. When returns to capital and wages are imperfectly correlated, a system that endows retired households with claims to labor income enhances the sharing of aggregate risk between generations. Our quantitative analysis shows that, abstracting from the capital crowding-out effect, the introduction of social security represents a Pareto-improving reform, even when the economy is dynamically efficient. However, the severity of the crowding-out effect in general equilibrium tends to overturn these gains. (JEL D58, D91, E62, H31, H55)Citation
Krueger, Dirk, and Felix Kubler. 2006. "Pareto-Improving Social Security Reform when Financial Markets are Incomplete!?" American Economic Review, 96 (3): 737-755. DOI: 10.1257/aer.96.3.737Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D91 Intertemporal Household Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
- H55 Social Security and Public Pensions