Government Debt and Social Security in a Life-Cycle Economy
Abstract
This paper develops a tractable overlapping generations model that is useful for analyzing both the short and long run impact of fiscal policy and social security. It modifies the Blanchard (1985)/Weil (1987) framework to allow for life/cycle behavior. This is accomplished by introducing random transition from work to retirement, and then from retirement to death. The transition probabilities may be picked to allow for realistic average lengths of life, work and retirement. The resulting framework is not appreciably more difficult to analyze than the standard Cass/Koopmans one sector growth model: Besides the capital stock, there is only one additional state variable: the distribution of wealth between workers and retirees. Under reasonable parameter values, government debt and social security have significant effects on capital intensity.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
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Paper provided by C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University in its series Working Papers with number 97-14.Length: 41 pages
Date of creation: 1997
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:cvs:starer:97-14
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Postal: C.V. Starr Center, Department of Economics, New York University, 19 W. 4th Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10012
Phone: (212) 998-8936
Fax: (212) 995-3932
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Web page: http://econ.as.nyu.edu/object/econ.cvstarr.html
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Postal: C.V. Starr Center, Department of Economics, New York University, 19 W. 4th Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10012
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Related research
Keywords: Overlapping Generations Model; government debt; social security;Other versions of this item:
- Gertler, Mark, 1999. "Government debt and social security in a life-cycle economy," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 61-110, June.
- Mark Gertler, 1997. "Government Debt and Social Security in a Life-Cycle Economy," NBER Working Papers 6000, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- E13 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Neoclassical
- E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General
References
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