IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tow/wpaper/2024-11.html

Business Cycles and Public Pensions: Aggregate Risk and Social Security in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Shantanu Bagchi

    (Department of Economics, Towson University)

Abstract

This paper uses a stylized overlapping-generations model to examine the effect of aggregate (or business cycle) risk on the macroeconomic and welfare implications of Social Security. In this model framework, unfunded public pensions provide partial insurance against inter- and intra-generational risks that are uninsured due to incomplete markets. I find that in this environment, Social Security’s macroeconomic and welfare effects are considerably smaller than those in a framework without aggregate risk, and that the persistence of the aggregate shock process is an important determinant of this difference. I also find that aggregate risk changes how the redistribution implicit in Social Security's benefit-earnings rule interacts with its inter- generational risk sharing mechanism.

Suggested Citation

  • Shantanu Bagchi, 2024. "Business Cycles and Public Pensions: Aggregate Risk and Social Security in the United States," Working Papers 2024-11, Towson University, Department of Economics, revised Sep 2024.
    • Handle: RePEc:tow:wpaper:2024-11
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://webapps.towson.edu/cbe/economics/workingpapers/2024-11.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2024
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Krueger, Dirk & Kubler, Felix, 2004. "Computing equilibrium in OLG models with stochastic production," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 28(7), pages 1411-1436, April.
    2. Daniel Harenberg & Alexander Ludwig, 2015. "Social security in an analytically tractable overlapping generations model with aggregate and idiosyncratic risks," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 22(4), pages 579-603, August.
    3. Kjetil Storesletten & Chris Telmer & Amir Yaron, 2007. "Asset Pricing with Idiosyncratic Risk and Overlapping Generations," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 10(4), pages 519-548, October.
    4. Bagchi, Shantanu, 2016. "Is The Social Security Crisis Really As Bad As We Think?," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 737-776, April.
    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. Andrew Glover & Jonathan Heathcote & Dirk Krueger & José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, 2020. "Intergenerational Redistribution in the Great Recession," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(10), pages 3730-3778.
    2. Jasmina Hasanhodzic & Laurence J. Kotlikoff, 2013. "Generational Risk–Is It a Big Deal?: Simulating an 80-Period OLG Model with Aggregate Shocks," BYU Macroeconomics and Computational Laboratory Working Paper Series 2013-01, Brigham Young University, Department of Economics, BYU Macroeconomics and Computational Laboratory.
    3. Piazzesi, Monika & Leombroni, Matteo & Rogers, Ciaran & Schneider, Martin, 2020. "Inflation and the Price of Real Assets," CEPR Discussion Papers 14390, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    4. Dirk Krueger, 2006. "Public Insurance against Idiosyncratic and Aggregate Risk: The Case of Social Security and Progressive Income Taxation," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 52(4), pages 587-620, December.
    5. Philipp Renner & Simon Scheidegger, 2017. "Machine learning for dynamic incentive problems," Working Papers 203620397, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    6. Jonathan Heathcote & Kjetil Storesletten & Giovanni L. Violante, 2009. "Quantitative Macroeconomics with Heterogeneous Households," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 319-354, May.
    7. Daniel Harenberg & Alexander Ludwig, "undated". "Social Security and the Interactions Between Aggregate and Idiosyncratic Risk," Working Papers ETH-RC-14-002, ETH Zurich, Chair of Systems Design.
    8. Orrego, Fabrizio, 2011. "Sequential incompleteness and dynamic suboptimality in stochastic OLG economies with production," Working Papers 2011-014, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú.
    9. Felix Kubler & Johannes Brumm, 2013. "Applying Negishi's method to stochastic models with overlapping generations," 2013 Meeting Papers 1352, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Daniel Harenberg & Alexander Ludwig, 2019. "Idiosyncratic Risk, Aggregate Risk, And The Welfare Effects Of Social Security," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 60(2), pages 661-692, May.
    11. Den Haan, Wouter J., 2010. "Assessing the accuracy of the aggregate law of motion in models with heterogeneous agents," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 79-99, January.
    12. Monika Piazzesi & Martin Schneider, 2009. "Inflation and the price of real assets," Staff Report 423, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    13. Fabrizio Orrego & Stephen Spear, "undated". "Sequential incompleteness and dynamic suboptimality in stochastic OLG economies with production," GSIA Working Papers 2012-E38, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    14. S. Bogan Aruoba & Pablo Cuba-Borda & Kenji Higa-Flores & Frank Schorfheide & Sergio Villalvazo, 2021. "Piecewise-Linear Approximations and Filtering for DSGE Models with Occasionally Binding Constraints," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 41, pages 96-120, July.
    15. Kedar-Levy, Haim, 2014. "The potential effect of US baby-boom retirees on stock returns," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 106-121.
    16. Wang, Qin & Ren, Yu & Zou, Yiheng, 2016. "Uninsured expense shocks and equity premia," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 64-74.
    17. Kubler, Felix & Scheidegger, Simon, 2023. "Uniformly self-justified equilibria," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    18. Krueger, Dirk & Ludwig, Alexander & Villalvazo, Sergio, 2021. "Optimal taxes on capital in the OLG model with uninsurable idiosyncratic income risk," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    19. Ashley Lim & Yihui Lan & Sirimon Treepongkaruna, 2020. "Asset pricing and energy consumption risk," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(4), pages 3813-3850, December.
    20. Rongju Zhang & Nicolas Langren'e & Yu Tian & Zili Zhu & Fima Klebaner & Kais Hamza, 2018. "Local Control Regression: Improving the Least Squares Monte Carlo Method for Portfolio Optimization," Papers 1803.11467, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2018.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • 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

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:tow:wpaper:2024-11. 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: Juergen Jung (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/detowus.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.