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Retirement Savings in an Aging Society: A Case for Innovative Government Debt Management

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Author Info
Henning Bohn (University of California, Santa Barbara)

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Abstract

Aging societies will have to rely increasingly on private savings to finance retirement. The natural savings vehicles, stocks and bonds, are unfortunately lacking key risk-sharing features that are built into public retirement. Innovative government debt management can address this problem. The optimal policy supplies retirees with securities that share the financial risks of aggregate productivity, asset valuation, and demographic shocks across generations. As the population ages, state-contingent government bonds are a better risk sharing tools than pensions, which become too costly, or taxation, which raises time-consistency problems. Wage-indexed and longevity-indexed bonds in particular yield unambiguous efficiency improvements. To the extent that public pensions remain important, plans with wage-indexed defined benefits seem preferable to defined contributions or price-indexed plans. Capital income taxes and pension trust funds can play a supporting role for risk sharing.

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Paper provided by Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara in its series University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series with number wp3-01.

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Date of creation: 01 Apr 2001
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Handle: RePEc:cdl:ucsbec:wp3-01

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Keywords: Retirement ; Savings; Society; Government ; Debt; Management;

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Henning Bohn, 1999. "Social Security and Demographic Uncertainty: The Risk Sharing Properties of Alternative Policies," NBER Working Papers 7030, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Lucas, Robert Jr. & Stokey, Nancy L., 1983. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy in an economy without capital," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 55-93. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Ogaki, M & Reinhart, C-M, 1995. "Measuring Intertemporal Substitution : The Role of Durable Goods," RCER Working Papers 404, University of Rochester - Center for Economic Research (RCER).
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  4. Alan J. Auerbach & Kevin A. Hassett, 1999. "Uncertainty and the Design of Long-Run Fiscal Policy," NBER Working Papers 7036, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Barro, Robert J, 1979. "On the Determination of the Public Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 940-71, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Henning Bohn, 1999. "Should the Social Security Trust Fund Hold Equities," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 2(3), pages 666-697, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Henning Bohn, 1998. "Risk Sharing in a Stochastic Overlapping Generations Economy," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series wp3-98, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Bohn, Henning, 1990. "Tax Smoothing with Financial Instruments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(5), pages 1217-30, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Zhu, Xiaodong, 1992. "Optimal fiscal policy in a stochastic growth model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 250-289, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Marianne Baxter & Robert G. King, 2001. "The Role of International Investment in a Privatized Social Security System," NBER Chapters, in: Risk Aspects of Investment-Based Social Security Reform, pages 371-438 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
  11. Gordon, Roger H, 1985. "Taxation of Corporate Capital Income: Tax Revenues versus Tax Distortions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 100(1), pages 1-27, February.
  12. Henning Bohn, 1997. "Social Security reform and financial markets," Conference Series ; [Proceedings], Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Jun, pages 193-227. [Downloadable!]
  13. Chamley, Christophe, 1986. "Optimal Taxation of Capital Income in General Equilibrium with Infinite Lives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(3), pages 607-22, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Peled, Dan, 1982. "Informational diversity over time and the optimality of monetary equilibria," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 255-274, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Mendoza, Enrique G. & Razin, Assaf & Tesar, Linda L., 1994. "Effective tax rates in macroeconomics: Cross-country estimates of tax rates on factor incomes and consumption," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 297-323, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  16. Roger H. Gordon & A. Lans Bovenberg, 1994. "Why is Capital so Immobile Internationally?: Possible Explanations and Implications for Capital Income Taxation," NBER Working Papers 4796, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Mariacristina De Nardi & Selahattin Imrohoroglu & Thomas J. Sargent, 1999. "Projected U.S. Demographics and Social Security," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 2(3), pages 575-615, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  18. Kent Smetters, 2001. "The Equivalence of the Social Security's Trust Fund Portfolio Allocation and Capital Income Tax Policy," NBER Working Papers 8259, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Smith, Alasdair, 1982. "Intergenerational transfers as social insurance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 97-106, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Bohn, Henning, 1994. "Optimal state-contingent capital taxation: when is there an indeterminacy?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 125-137, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  21. Chari, V V & Christiano, Lawrence J & Kehoe, Patrick J, 1994. "Optimal Fiscal Policy in a Business Cycle Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(4), pages 617-52, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  22. John McHale, 2001. "The Risk of Social Security Benefit-Rule Changes: Some International Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: Risk Aspects of Investment-Based Social Security Reform, pages 247-290 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. John Y. Campbell & Yves Nosbusch, 2006. "Intergenerational Risksharing and Equilibrium Asset Prices," NBER Working Papers 12204, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Jules H. van Binsbergen & Michael W. Brandt, 2007. "Optimal Asset Allocation in Asset Liability Management," NBER Working Papers 12970, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Lassila , Jukka & Valkonen, Tarmo, 2008. "Population ageing and fiscal sustainability in Finland: a stochastic analysis," Research Discussion Papers 28/2008, Bank of Finland. [Downloadable!]
  4. John Geanakoplos & Stephen P. Zeldes, 2008. "Reforming Social Security with Progressive Personal Accounts," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1664, Cowles Foundation, Yale University. [Downloadable!]
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