IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/ifwkwp/904.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The political economy of intra- and intergenerational redistribution with asymmetric information

Author

Listed:
  • Lorz, Jens Oliver

Abstract

In this paper redistribution policy is analyzed in a 2-period overlapping generations model with heterogeneous individuals and asymmetric information between the government and the private sector. Individuals of the same generation differ with respect to their labor productivity. In each period, the respective government decides not only about the distribution of consumption between the working generation and the retired but also about the distribution within generations - between individuals with a high and with a low productivity of labor. The government in period 1 is not able to determine the policy of the subsequent government in period 2. In the political equilibrium, consumption of high- and low-productivity individuals is inefficiently allocated over their life cycle. For a given level of aggregate savings, a Pareto-improvement would be achieved, if high-productivity individuals consumed less during their working life and more during retirement in the following period, whereas low-productivity individuals had to consume more during their working life and less during retirement. In addition to this inefficiency, the government in period 1 may choose an inefficient level of aggregate savings in the equilibrium. It is shown for a specific example that an increase in aggregate savings would be Pareto-improving.

Suggested Citation

  • Lorz, Jens Oliver, 1999. "The political economy of intra- and intergenerational redistribution with asymmetric information," Kiel Working Papers 904, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:ifwkwp:904
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/46925/1/265587654.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Breyer, Friedrich, 1994. "The political economy of intergenerational redistribution," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 61-84, May.
    2. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1987. "Pareto efficient and optimal taxation and the new new welfare economics," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 991-1042, Elsevier.
    3. Browning, Edgar K, 1975. "Why the Social Insurance Budget Is Too Large in a Democracy," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 13(3), pages 373-388, September.
    4. Meijdam, Lex & Verbon, Harrie A A, 1996. "Aging and Political Decision Making on Public Pensions," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 9(2), pages 141-158, May.
    5. Hansson, Ingemar & Stuart, Charles, 1989. "Social Security as Trade among Living Generations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(5), pages 1182-1195, December.
    6. V. Bhaskar, 1998. "Informational Constraints and the Overlapping Generations Model: Folk and Anti-Folk Theorems," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 65(1), pages 135-149.
    7. Guido Tabellini, 2000. "A Positive Theory of Social Security," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 102(3), pages 523-545, September.
    8. Krusell, Per & Quadrini, Vincenzo & Rios-Rull, Jose-Victor, 1997. "Politico-economic equilibrium and economic growth," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 243-272, January.
    9. Calvo, Guillermo A & Obstfeld, Maurice, 1988. "Optimal Time-Consistent Fiscal Policy with Finite Lifetimes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(2), pages 411-432, March.
    10. Hori, Hajime, 1997. "Dynamic Allocation in an Altruistic Overlapping Generations Economy," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 292-315, April.
    11. Kydland, Finn E. & Prescott, Edward C., 1980. "Dynamic optimal taxation, rational expectations and optimal control," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 79-91, May.
    12. Tabellini, Guido, 1991. "The Politics of Intergenerational Redistribution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(2), pages 335-357, April.
    13. Verbon, Harrie, 1993. "Public Pensions: The Role of Public Choice and Expectations," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 6(2), pages 123-135, May.
    14. Verhoeven, Marijn J. M. & Verbon, Harrie A. A., 1991. "Expectations on pension schemes under non-stationary conditions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 99-103, May.
    15. Fischer, Stanley, 1980. "Dynamic inconsistency, cooperation and the benevolent dissembling government," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 93-107, May.
    16. Harrie Verbon & Marijn Verhoeven, 1992. "Decision making on pension schemes under rational expectations," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 71-97, February.
    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. Lorz, Jens Oliver, 1999. "Intergenerational redistribution with asymmetric information: The case of non-observable savings," Kiel Working Papers 918, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    2. Lorz, Jens Oliver, 1999. "Social security and redistribution within generations in an overlapping generations model," Kiel Working Papers 957, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).

    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. Grégory De Walque, 2005. "Voting on Pensions: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 181-209, April.
    2. Galasso, Vincenzo & Profeta, Paola, 2002. "The political economy of social security: a survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 1-29, March.
    3. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    4. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1998. "Intergenerational Redistribution with Short-Lived Governments," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(450), pages 1299-1329, September.
    5. Lorz, Jens Oliver, 1999. "Social security and redistribution within generations in an overlapping generations model," Kiel Working Papers 957, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    6. Rizzo, Giuseppe, 2009. "Fertility and pension systems," MPRA Paper 12998, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Lorz, Jens Oliver, 1999. "Intergenerational redistribution with asymmetric information: The case of non-observable savings," Kiel Working Papers 918, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    8. Neugart, Michael & Kemmerling, Achim, 2015. "The emergence of redistributive pensions in the developing world," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 112884, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    9. Gonzales-Eiras, Martín & Niepelt, Dirk, 2004. "Sustaining Social Security," Seminar Papers 731, Stockholm University, Institute for International Economic Studies.
    10. Breyer, Friedrich & Craig, Ben, 1997. "Voting on social security: Evidence from OECD countries," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 705-724, December.
    11. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1999. "Political economics and macroeconomic policy," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 22, pages 1397-1482, Elsevier.
    12. Cigno, Alessandro, 2006. "The political economy of intergenerational cooperation," Handbook on the Economics of Giving, Reciprocity and Altruism, in: S. Kolm & Jean Mercier Ythier (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Giving, Altruism and Reciprocity, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 25, pages 1505-1558, Elsevier.
    13. Bernard M.S. van Praag & Pedro Cardoso, 2003. "The Mix Between Pay-as-you-go and Funded Pensions and What Demography Has to Do with it," CESifo Working Paper Series 865, CESifo.
    14. Gilles Le Garrec, 2009. "Système de retraite et vieillissement," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 93-94, pages 349-361.
    15. Gonzalez-Eiras, Marti­n & Niepelt, Dirk, 2008. "The future of social security," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 197-218, March.
    16. Kemmerling, Achim & Neugart, Michael, 2009. "Financial market lobbies and pension reform," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 163-173, June.
    17. Paola Profeta, 2002. "Aging and Retirement: Evidence Across Countries," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 9(6), pages 651-672, November.
    18. Friedrich Breyer & Klaus Stolte, 2001. "Demographic change, endogenous labor supply and the political feasibility of pension reform," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 14(3), pages 409-424.
    19. Berthold U. Wigger, 2002. "Social Security and Growth in an Altruistic Economy," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 3(1), pages 53-80, February.
    20. Loewy, Michael B., 1995. "Equilibrium policy with dynamically naive agents," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 319-331.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Overlapping generations; redistribution; political economy; asymmetric information;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

    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:zbw:ifwkwp:904. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iwkiede.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.