IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/red/issued/v2y1999i3p666-697.html

Should the Social Security Trust Fund Hold Equities

Author

Listed:
  • Henning Bohn

    (University of California, Santa Barbara)

Abstract

In a stochastic economy with overlapping generations, fiscal policy affects the allocation of aggregate risks. The paper shows how to compute the welfare effects of marginal policy changes that shift risk across cohorts, in general and for an application to social security equity investments. I estimate the relevant correlations between macroeconomic shocks and equity returns from 1874-1996 U.S. data, calibrate the model, and find positive welfare effects for equity investments. Since stock returns are positively correlated with social security's wage-indexed benefit obligations, equity investments would also help to stabilize the payroll tax rate. (Copyright: Elsevier)

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:issued:v:2:y:1999:i:3:p:666-697
    DOI: 10.1006/redy.1999.0062
    Note: A technical appendix is available, see the handle RePEc:red:append:bohn99
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/redy.1999.0062
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full texts is restricted to ScienceDirect subscribers and ScienceDirect institutional members. See http://www.sciencedirect.com/ for details.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1006/redy.1999.0062?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Y. Campbell & Luis M. Viceira, 1999. "Consumption and Portfolio Decisions when Expected Returns are Time Varying," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(2), pages 433-495.
    2. Weil, Philippe, 1989. "The equity premium puzzle and the risk-free rate puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 401-421, November.
    3. Enders, Walter & Lapan, Harvey E, 1982. "Social Security Taxation and Intergenerational Risk Sharing," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 23(3), pages 647-658, October.
    4. Gordon, Roger H. & Varian, Hal R., 1988. "Intergenerational risk sharing," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 185-202, November.
    5. Baxter, Marianne & Jermann, Urban J, 1997. "The International Diversification Puzzle Is Worse Than You Think," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(1), pages 170-180, March.
    6. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 1985. "The equity premium: A puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-161, March.
    7. King, Robert G. & Plosser, Charles I. & Rebelo, Sergio T., 1988. "Production, growth and business cycles : I. The basic neoclassical model," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2-3), pages 195-232.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Bohn, Henning, 1998. "Risk Sharing in a Stochastic Overlapping Generations Economy," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt9r2809f0, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    2. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    3. Huarui Jing, 2025. "Robustness Study of Unit Elasticity of Intertemporal Substitution Assumption and Preference Misspecification," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-23, May.
    4. Julliard, Christian, 2007. "Labor income risk and asset returns," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 4811, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. De Paoli, Bianca & Scott, Alasdair & Weeken, Olaf, 2010. "Asset pricing implications of a New Keynesian model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 2056-2073, October.
    6. H. Youn Kim, 2003. "Intertemporal production and asset pricing: a duality approach," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 55(2), pages 344-379, April.
    7. Luca Benzoni & Pierre Collin-Dufresne & Robert S. Goldstein, 2005. "Portfolio Choice over the Life-Cycle in the Presence of 'Trickle Down' Labor Income," NBER Working Papers 11247, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Eric Swanson, 2015. "A Macroeconomic Model of Equities and Real, Nominal, and Defaultable Debt," 2015 Meeting Papers 273, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Woon Gyu Choi, 2007. "Measuring Interest Rates as Determined by Thrift and Productivity," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 8(1), pages 167-195, May.
    10. Stijn Claessens & M. Ayhan Kose, 2017. "Asset Prices and Macroeconomic Outcomes: A Survey," CAMA Working Papers 2017-76, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    11. Olovsson, Conny, 2004. "The Welfare Gains of Improving Risk Sharing in Social Security," Seminar Papers 728, Stockholm University, Institute for International Economic Studies.
    12. TallariniJr., Thomas D., 2000. "Risk-sensitive real business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 507-532, June.
    13. Bohn, Henning, 2009. "Intergenerational risk sharing and fiscal policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 805-816, September.
    14. Martin M. Andreasen & Kasper Jørgensen, 2016. "Explaining Asset Prices with Low Risk Aversion and Low Intertemporal Substitution," CREATES Research Papers 2016-16, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    15. Olovsson, Conny, 2010. "Quantifying the risk-sharing welfare gains of social security," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 364-375, April.
    16. John H. Cochrane, 2011. "Discount Rates," NBER Working Papers 16972, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Luca Benzoni & Pierre Collin‐Dufresne & Robert S. Goldstein, 2007. "Portfolio Choice over the Life‐Cycle when the Stock and Labor Markets Are Cointegrated," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(5), pages 2123-2167, October.
    18. Martin Lettau & Harald Uhlig, 2000. "Can Habit Formation be Reconciled with Business Cycle Facts?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 3(1), pages 79-99, January.
    19. Beetsma, R. & Romp, W., 2016. "Intergenerational Risk Sharing," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 311-380, Elsevier.
    20. Edith Liu & Karen Lewis, 2012. "International Consumption Risk Is Shared After All: An Asset Return View," 2012 Meeting Papers 643, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • 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:red:issued:v:2:y:1999:i:3:p:666-697. 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: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.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.