IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/nbr/nberch/6035.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

On Consumption Indexed Public Pension Plans

In: Financial Aspects of the United States Pension System

Author

Listed:
  • Robert C. Merton

Abstract

Using the known result that life-cycle investors will optimally hold portfolios whose returns are perfectly correlated with aggregate consumption, this paper uses a simple intertemporal general equilibrium model to explore the merits and feasibility of pension plans where both accumulations and benefits are linked to aggregate per capita consumption. Although the analysis is made within the framework of a public pension plan, it applies equally well to organized private pension plans where participation is virtually mandatory and where individually designed programs are not practical. An additional feature of the plans examined is that they provide for life annuities during both the accumulation and retirement phases of the life cycle.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Robert C. Merton, 1983. "On Consumption Indexed Public Pension Plans," NBER Chapters, in: Financial Aspects of the United States Pension System, pages 259-290, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:6035
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c6035.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert M. Solow, 1956. "A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 70(1), pages 65-94.
    2. Paul A. Samuelson, 1958. "An Exact Consumption-Loan Model of Interest with or without the Social Contrivance of Money," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66, pages 467-467.
    3. Merton, Robert C., 1971. "Optimum consumption and portfolio rules in a continuous-time model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 373-413, December.
    4. Stanley Fischer, 1982. "Welfare Aspects of Government Issue of Indexed Bonds," NBER Working Papers 0874, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Abba P. Lerner, 1959. "Consumption-Loan Interest and Money," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67, pages 512-512.
    6. Breeden, Douglas T., 1979. "An intertemporal asset pricing model with stochastic consumption and investment opportunities," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 265-296, September.
    7. Paul A. Samuelson, 1959. "Consumption-Loan Interest and Money: Reply," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67, pages 518-518.
    8. P. S. Dasgupta, 1969. "On the Concept of Optimum Population," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 36(3), pages 295-318.
    9. Diamond, P. A., 1977. "A framework for social security analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 275-298, December.
    10. Merton, Robert C, 1973. "An Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(5), pages 867-887, September.
    11. Samuelson, Paul A, 1976. "The Optimum Growth Rate for Population: Agreement and Evaluations," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 17(2), pages 516-525, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Blake, David & Cairns, Andrew J. G. & Dowd, Kevin, 2003. "Pensionmetrics 2: stochastic pension plan design during the distribution phase," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 29-47, August.
    2. Westerhout, Ed & Meijdam, Lex & Ponds, Eduard & Bonenkamp, Jan, 2022. "Should we revive PAYG? On the optimal pension system in view of current economic trends," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    3. Bodie, Zvi & Detemple, Jerome B. & Otruba, Susanne & Walter, Stephan, 2004. "Optimal consumption-portfolio choices and retirement planning," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 1115-1148, March.
    4. Robert J. Shiller, 1997. "Public Resistance to Indexation: A Puzzle," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 28(1), pages 159-228.
    5. Diamond, P., 1994. "Insulations of pensions from Political Risk," Working papers 94-20, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    6. Dirk Broeders & Paul Hilbers & David Rijsbergen & Ningli Shen, 2014. "What Drives Pension Indexation in Turbulent Times? An Empirical Examination of Dutch Pension Funds," De Economist, Springer, vol. 162(1), pages 41-70, March.
    7. Horneff, Wolfram J. & Maurer, Raimond H. & Mitchell, Olivia S. & Dus, Ivica, 2008. "Following the rules: Integrating asset allocation and annuitization in retirement portfolios," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 396-408, February.
    8. Shiller, Robert J., 1999. "Social security and institutions for intergenerational, intragenerational, and international risk-sharing," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 165-204, June.
    9. Robert J. Shiller, 1997. "Expanding the Scope of Individual Risk Management: Moral Hazard and Other Behavioral Considerations," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1145, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    10. Edward P. Lazear, 1985. "Incentive Effects of Pensions," NBER Chapters, in: Pensions, Labor, and Individual Choice, pages 253-282, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Wolfram Horneff & Raimond Maurer & Olivia Mitchell & Ivica Dus, 2006. "Optimizing the Retirement Portfolio: Asset Allocation, Annuitization, and Risk Aversion," Working Papers wp124, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    12. Thomas Post, 2009. "Individual Welfare Gains from Deferred Life-Annuities under Stochastic Lee-Carter Mortality," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2009-022, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    13. Lewis Evans & Neil Quigley, 2013. "Intergenerational Contracts and Time Consistency: Implications for Policy Settings and Governance in the Social Welfare System," Treasury Working Paper Series 13/25, New Zealand Treasury.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Weiske, Sebastian, 2019. "Population growth, the natural rate of interest, and inflation," Working Papers 03/2019, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung.
    2. Orszag, J. Michael & Yang, Hong, 1995. "Portfolio choice with Knightian uncertainty," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 19(5-7), pages 873-900.
    3. John Y. Campbell & Yeung Lewis Chanb & M. Viceira, 2013. "A multivariate model of strategic asset allocation," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part II, chapter 39, pages 809-848, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Gerrard, Russell & Kyriakou, Ioannis & Nielsen, Jens Perch & Vodička, Peter, 2023. "On optimal constrained investment strategies for long-term savers in stochastic environments and probability hedging," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 307(2), pages 948-962.
    5. Lee, R., 2016. "Macroeconomics, Aging, and Growth," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 59-118, Elsevier.
    6. Suresh M. Sundaresan, 2000. "Continuous‐Time Methods in Finance: A Review and an Assessment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1569-1622, August.
    7. Lioui, Abraham & Poncet, Patrice, 2003. "Dynamic asset pricing with non-redundant forwards," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(7), pages 1163-1180, May.
    8. Robinson, James A. & Srinivasan, T.N., 1993. "Long-term consequences of population growth: Technological change, natural resources, and the environment," Handbook of Population and Family Economics, in: M. R. Rosenzweig & Stark, O. (ed.), Handbook of Population and Family Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 21, pages 1175-1298, Elsevier.
    9. Blake, David & Wright, Douglas & Zhang, Yumeng, 2014. "Age-dependent investing: Optimal funding and investment strategies in defined contribution pension plans when members are rational life cycle financial planners," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 105-124.
    10. Batista Soares, David & Borocco, Etienne, 2022. "Rational destabilization in commodity markets," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 25(C).
    11. Elyès Jouini & Clotilde Napp, 2002. "Arbitrage Pricing And Equilibrium Pricing: Compatibility Conditions," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Marco Avellaneda (ed.), Quantitative Analysis In Financial Markets Collected Papers of the New York University Mathematical Finance Seminar(Volume III), chapter 6, pages 131-158, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    12. Johnson Kakeu, 2017. "Environmentally conscious investors and portfolio choice decisions," Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(4), pages 360-378, October.
    13. Juan Carlos Parra‐Alvarez & Olaf Posch & Andreas Schrimpf, 2022. "Peso problems in the estimation of the C‐CAPM," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(1), pages 259-313, January.
    14. Lioui, Abraham & Poncet, Patrice, 2001. "On optimal portfolio choice under stochastic interest rates," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 25(11), pages 1841-1865, November.
    15. Felipe Aldunate & Jaime Casassus, 2012. "Consumption and Hedging in Oil†Importing Developing Countries," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 18(5), pages 896-928, November.
    16. Bradford, D.F., 1989. "Market Value Us. Financial Accounting Measures Of National Saving," Papers 34, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Discussion Paper.
    17. LuisM. Viceira & John Y. Campbell, 2001. "Who Should Buy Long-Term Bonds?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 99-127, March.
    18. Chaieb, Ines & Errunza, Vihang, 2007. "International asset pricing under segmentation and PPP deviations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 543-578, November.
    19. repec:dau:papers:123456789/5374 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Thierry Chauveau & Rahim Loufir, 1994. "Allongement de l'espérance de vie, croissance et retraites," Revue de l'OFCE, Programme National Persée, vol. 50(1), pages 29-64.
    21. Constantinos Kardaras & Hyeng Keun Koo & Johannes Ruf, 2022. "Estimation of growth in fund models," Papers 2208.02573, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:6035. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.