IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v93y2003i4p1047-1074.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social Security Investment in Equities

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Diamond
  • John Geanakoplos

Abstract

This paper explores the general-equilibrium impact of social security portfolio diversification into private securities, either through the trust fund or private accounts. The analysis depends critically on heterogeneities in saving, production, assets, and taxes. Limited diversification weakly increases interest rates, reduces the expected return on short-term investment (and the equity premium), decreases safe investment, increases risky investment, and increases a suitably weighted social welfare function. However, the effects on aggregate investment, long-term capital values, and the utility of young savers hinges on assumptions about technology. Aggregate investment and long-term asset values can move in opposite directions. (JEL H55)

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Diamond & John Geanakoplos, 2003. "Social Security Investment in Equities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1047-1074, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:93:y:2003:i:4:p:1047-1074
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/000282803769206197
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/000282803769206197
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrew B. Abel, 2001. "The Effects of Investing Social Security Funds in the Stock Market When Fixed Costs Prevent Some Households from Holding Stocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 128-148, March.
    2. Olivia S. Mitchell & James F. Moore, "undated". "Retirement Wealth Accumulation and Decumulation: New Developments and Outstanding Opportunities," Pension Research Council Working Papers 97-8, Wharton School Pension Research Council, University of Pennsylvania.
    3. John Geanakoplos & Olivia S. Mitchell & Stephen P. Zeldes, "undated". "Social Security Money's Worth," Pension Research Council Working Papers 97-20, Wharton School Pension Research Council, University of Pennsylvania.
    4. Fischer, Stanley, 1972. "Assets, Contingent Commodities, and the Slutsky Equations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 40(2), pages 371-385, March.
    5. Arthur B. Kennickell & Martha Starr-McCluer & Annika E. Sunden, 1997. "Family finances in the U.S.: recent evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), issue Jan, pages 1-24.
    6. Peter Diamond, 2004. "Social Security," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 1-24, March.
    7. Diamond, Peter A & Yaari, Menahem, 1972. "Implications of the Theory of Rationing for Consumer Choice Under Uncertainty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(3), pages 333-343, June.
    8. Martin Feldstein, 1985. "The Optimal Level of Social Security Benefits," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 100(2), pages 303-320.
    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. Kent Smetters, 2005. "Social Security Privatization with Elastic Labor Supply and Second-Best Taxes," NBER Working Papers 11101, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Gottardi, Piero & Kubler, Felix, 2011. "Social security and risk sharing," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 1078-1106, May.
    3. Ebrahim, M. Shahid & Mathur, Ike & ap Gwilym, Rhys, 2014. "Integrating corporate ownership and pension fund structures: A general equilibrium approach," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 553-569.
    4. Attanasio, Orazio & Kitao, Sagiri & Violante, Giovanni L., 2007. "Global demographic trends and social security reform," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 144-198, January.
    5. Corneo, Giacomo, 2017. "Ein Staatsfonds, der eine soziale Dividende finanziert," Discussion Papers 2017/13, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    6. Hurst, Erik & Willen, Paul, 2007. "Social security and unsecured debt," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(7-8), pages 1273-1297, August.
    7. Bossi, Luca, 2008. "Intergenerational risk shifting through social security and bailout politics," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 2240-2268, July.
    8. Jeffrey R. Brown & Zoran Ivkovic & Paul A. Smith & Scott Weisbenner, 2008. "Neighbors Matter: Causal Community Effects and Stock Market Participation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(3), pages 1509-1531, June.
    9. repec:spr:joecth:v:64:y:2017:i:4:d:10.1007_s00199-016-0986-z is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Wolfgang Kuhle, 2014. "The Optimal Structure for Public Debt," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(2), pages 321-348, May.
    11. Smetters, Kent, 2006. "Risk sharing across generations without publicly owned equities," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 1493-1508, October.
    12. Martin Werding & Marko Primorac, 2016. "Old-Age Provision in Transition: The Case of Croatia," CESifo Working Paper Series 5761, CESifo Group Munich.
    13. Robert Novy-Marx & Joshua D. Rauh, 2009. "The Liabilities and Risks of State-Sponsored Pension Plans," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(4), pages 191-210, Fall.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions

    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:aea:aecrev:v:93:y:2003:i:4:p:1047-1074. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Michael P. Albert). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.