IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/0212.html

Social Security Wealth: The Impact of Alternative Inflation Adjustments

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Feldstein
  • Anthony J. Pellechio

Abstract

The distribution of wealth is one of the most important and least studied features of our economic life. A lack of good data on household wealth is the primary reason for the inadequate attention to this subject. Moreover, the evidence that is available from household surveys and estate records excludes the most important asset of the vast majority of households: the value of future social security benefits. The purpose of the current paper is to present evidence on the distribution of social security wealth and to use these estimates to analyze the impact of alternative methods of adjusting future benefits for changes in the price level.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Feldstein & Anthony J. Pellechio, 1977. "Social Security Wealth: The Impact of Alternative Inflation Adjustments," NBER Working Papers 0212, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0212
    Note: PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w0212.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Feldstein, Martin & Liebman, Jeffrey B., 2002. "Social security," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 32, pages 2245-2324, Elsevier.
    2. Kotlikoff, Laurence J. & Summers, Lawrence H., 1987. "Tax incidence," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 16, pages 1043-1092, Elsevier.
    3. Munnell, Alicia H, 1976. "Private Pensions and Saving: New Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(5), pages 1013-1032, October.
    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. Ann McDermed & Robert L. Clark & Steven G. Allen, 1989. "Pension Wealth, Age-Wealth Profiles, and the Distribution of Net Worth," NBER Chapters, in: The Measurement of Saving, Investment, and Wealth, pages 689-736, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Kotlikoff, Laurence J., 2002. "Generational policy," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 27, pages 1873-1932, Elsevier.
    3. Edward N. Wolff, 2005. "Is the Equalizing Effect of Retirement Wealth Wearing Off?," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_420, Levy Economics Institute.
    4. Marc Robinson, 1983. "Social Security and Physical Capital: An Interpretation of the Evidence, Lessons and Outlook," UCLA Economics Working Papers 307, UCLA Department of Economics.
    5. Impavido, Gregorio & Musalem, Alberto R., 2000. "Contractual savings, stock, and asset markets," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2490, The World Bank.
    6. Louis Dicks-Mireaux & Mervyn A. King, 1982. "Pension Wealth and Household Savings: Tests of Robustness," NBER Working Papers 0962, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Miguel Angel López García, 1991. "Sobre la reforma de la seguridad social: ¿capitalización o fondos de capital?," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 15(3), pages 505-530, September.
    8. Jeffrey R. Brown & Julia Lynn Coronado & Don Fullerton, 2009. "Is Social Security Part of the Social Safety Net?," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 23, pages 37-72, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Besley, Timothy & Meads, Neil & Surico, Paolo, 2014. "The incidence of transaction taxes: Evidence from a stamp duty holiday," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 61-70.
    10. Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2002. "Redistribution in the Current U.S. Social Security System," NBER Chapters, in: The Distributional Aspects of Social Security and Social Security Reform, pages 11-48, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. C. Lee, 1998. "Life Cycle Savings in the United States, 1900-1990," CPE working papers 0014, University of Chicago - Centre for Population Economics.
    12. Martin Feldstein & Elena Ranguelova & Andrew Samwick, 2001. "The Transition to Investment-Based Social Security When Portfolio Returns and Capital Profitability Are Uncertain," NBER Chapters, in: Risk Aspects of Investment-Based Social Security Reform, pages 41-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Kotlikoff, Laurence J, 1988. "Intergenerational Transfers and Savings," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 41-58, Spring.
    14. Boskin, Michael J. & Hurd, Michael D., 1978. "The effect of social security on early retirement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 361-377, December.
    15. Shinichi Nishiyama & Kent Smetters, 2006. "Social Security Privatization with Income-Mortality Correlation," Working Papers wp140, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    16. George R. Zodrow, 2019. "Intrajurisdictional Capitalization and the Incidence of the Property Tax," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: George R Zodrow (ed.), TAXATION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE Selected Essays of George R. Zodrow, chapter 16, pages 489-522, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    17. Gustman, Alan L. & Steinmeier, Thomas L., 2001. "How effective is redistribution under the social security benefit formula?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 1-28, October.
    18. K. Mc Morrow & W. Röger, 2002. "EU pension reform - An overview of the debate and an empirical assessment of the main policy reform options," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 162, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    19. Shinichi Nishiyama & Kent Smetters, 2008. "The Optimal Design of Social Security Benefits," Working Papers wp197, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    20. Martin Feldstein, 1997. "Transition to a Fully Funded Pension System: Five Economic Issues," NBER Working Papers 6149, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:0212. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.