Social security trust fund (SSTF), the government fiscal use of the SSTF, and intergenerational equity

In this dissertation we pay particular attention to changing share of unfunded and fully funded SS systems and to the alternative government fiscal policies regarding the use of the social security trust fund (SSTF) in order to investigate the resulting economic and intergenerational equity consequences. To carry out this investigation, we develop a computational two periods lived overlapping generations model with production in which a wide range of possible SS arrangements and possible government fiscal uses of the SSTF are incorporated in parameterized form. The parameterization of the SS system permits the comparative dynamic study of a family of SS systems;Several important results are discovered during the course of our simulations. First, the particular type of SS arrangement and the government use of the SSTF may not be particularly important when some conditions are satisfied. The chief reasoning for this is that agents do not distinguish between types of SS arrangement and the government fiscal polices as long as their lifetime utilities remain unchanged;Second, SS actuarial status is not an ineffective measure of intergenerational equity although it is one standard measure used in the analysis of SS systems. The reason for this is that, although SS actuarial status may affect lifetime utility, it is not the sole factor that does so;Third, contrary to the general belief that one of the major underlying motivations behind the transformation of SS system is a wide range of demographic changes, having a particular population structure does not necessarily make one type of SS system preferable to other types of SS system. For instance, more funding for a SS system is justified given either a decreased labor share or an increased consumption time preference but not necessarily given a decreased population growth rate.