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Intergenerational Risk Sharing by Means of Pay-as-you-go Programs – an Investigation of Alternative Mechanisms

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Author Info
Øystein Thøgersen ()
Abstract

A pay-as-you-go (paygo) pension program may provide intergenerational pooling of risks to individuals’ labor and capital income over the life cycle. By means of a model that provides illuminating closed form solutions, we demonstrate that the magnitude of the optimal paygo program and the nature of the underlying risk sharing effects are very sensitive to the chosen combination of risk concepts and stochastic specification of long run aggregate wage income growth. In an additive way we distinguish between the pooling of wage and capital risks within periods and two different intertemporal risk sharing mechanisms. For realistic parameter values, the magnitude of the optimal paygo program is largest when wage shocks are not permanent and individuals in any generation are considered from a pre-birth perspective, i.e. a “rawlsian risk sharing” perspective is adopted.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by CESifo Group Munich in its series CESifo Working Paper Series with number CESifo Working Paper No. 1759.

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Date of creation: 2006
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Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1759

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Related research
Keywords: social security; risk sharing; portfolio choice; persistence in income shocks;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D91 - Microeconomics - - Intertemporal Choice and Growth - - - Intertemporal Consumer Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions

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References listed on IDEAS
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  1. Christiano, Lawrence J. & Eichenbaum, Martin, 1990. "Unit roots in real GNP: Do we know, and do we care?," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 7-61, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Andrew B. Abel & N. Gregory Mankiw & Lawrence H. Summers & Richard J. Zeckhauser, 1989. "Assessing Dynamic Efficiency: Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 2097, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Martin Feldstein & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2001. "Social Security," NBER Working Papers 8451, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
    • Feldstein, Martin & Liebman, Jeffrey B., 2002. "Social security," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 32, pages 2245-2324 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. De Menil, Georges & Murtin, Fabrice & Sheshinski, Eytan, 2006. "Planning for the optimal mix of paygo tax and funded savings," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(01), pages 1-25, March. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Matsen, Egil & Thogersen, Oystein, 2004. "Designing social security - a portfolio choice approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 883-904, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Dutta, Jayasri & Kapur, Sandeep & Orszag, J. Michael, 2000. "A portfolio approach to the optimal funding of pensions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 201-206, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. James M. Poterba, 2000. "Stock Market Wealth and Consumption," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 99-118, Spring. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Robert C. Merton, 1983. "On the Role of Social Security as a Means for Efficient Risk Sharing in an Economy Where Human Capital Is Not Tradable," NBER Chapters, in: Financial Aspects of the United States Pension System, pages 325-358 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
  9. Antonio Rangel & Richard Zeckhauser, 1999. "Can Market and Voting Institutions Generate Optimal Intergenerational Risk Sharing?," NBER Working Papers 6949, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Laurence Ball & N. Gregory Mankiw, 2001. "Intergenerational Risk Sharing in the Spirit of Arrow, Debreu, and Rawls, with Applications to Social Security Design," NBER Working Papers 8270, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
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