IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/ucsbec/qt9r2809f0.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Risk Sharing in a Stochastic Overlapping Generations Economy

Author

Listed:
  • Bohn, Henning

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of government policy on the allocation of aggregate risks in a stochastic OG model with production. The market allocation of risk depends significantly on the young generation’s willingness to substitute intertemporally and on government policy. Safe government debt shifts productivity risk from old to young while wage-indexed social security is essentially neutral. I also compare the market allocation to the efficient allocation of risk. The market allocation is generally inefficient, except for the special case of wage-proportional incomes and logarithmic utility. Safe government debt seems to shift risk in the wrong direction.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:ucsbec:qt9r2809f0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/9r2809f0.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chari, V V & Christiano, Lawrence J & Kehoe, Patrick J, 1991. "Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy: Some Recent Results," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 23(3), pages 519-539, August.
    2. Huggett, Mark, 1996. "Wealth distribution in life-cycle economies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 469-494, December.
    3. Smith, Alasdair, 1982. "Intergenerational transfers as social insurance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 97-106, October.
    4. Greenwood, Jeremy & Hercowitz, Zvi, 1991. "The Allocation of Capital and Time over the Business Cycle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(6), pages 1188-1214, December.
    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. Feldstein, Martin, 1996. "The Missing Piece in Policy Analysis: Social Security Reform," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 1-14, May.
    7. 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.
    8. Gordon, Roger H. & Varian, Hal R., 1988. "Intergenerational risk sharing," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 185-202, November.
    9. 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.
    10. Henning Bohn, 1997. "Social Security reform and financial markets," Conference Series ; [Proceedings], Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue jun, pages 193-227.
    11. José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, 1996. "Life-Cycle Economies and Aggregate Fluctuations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 63(3), pages 465-489.
    12. Hall, Robert E, 1988. "Intertemporal Substitution in Consumption," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(2), pages 339-357, April.
    13. Bohn, Henning, 1994. "Optimal state-contingent capital taxation: when is there an indeterminacy?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 125-137, August.
    14. Peled, Dan, 1982. "Informational diversity over time and the optimality of monetary equilibria," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 255-274, December.
    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. Hassler, J. & Lindbeck, A., 1997. "Intergenerational Risk Sharing, Stability and Optimality of Alternative Pension Systems," Papers 631, Stockholm - International Economic Studies.
    2. Sinn, Hans-Werner, 2004. "The pay-as-you-go pension system as fertility insurance and an enforcement device," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1335-1357, July.
    3. Bohn, Henning, 2009. "Intergenerational risk sharing and fiscal policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 805-816, September.
    4. Bohn, Henning, 2001. "Retirement Savings in an Aging Society: A Case for Innovative Government Debt Management," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt59r83559, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    5. Antonio Rangel & Richard Zeckhauser, 2001. "Can Market and Voting Institutions Generate Optimal Intergenerational Risk Sharing?," NBER Chapters, in: Risk Aspects of Investment-Based Social Security Reform, pages 113-152, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. repec:cdl:ucsbec:4-98 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. 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.
    8. Matsen, Egil & Thogersen, Oystein, 2004. "Designing social security - a portfolio choice approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 883-904, August.
    9. Shiller, Robert J., 1999. "Social security and institutions for intergenerational, intragenerational, and international risk-sharing," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 165-204, June.
    10. Michael Dotsey & Wenli Li & Fang Yang, 2014. "Consumption And Time Use Over The Life Cycle," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 55(3), pages 665-692, August.
    11. Borgmann, Christoph, 2002. "Labor income risk, demographic risk, and the design of (wage-indexed) social security," Discussion Papers 100, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Institut für Finanzwissenschaft.
    12. Fatih Guvenen, 2011. "Macroeconomics with hetereogeneity : a practical guide," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 97(3Q), pages 255-326.
    13. Torben M. Andersen & Joydeep Bhattacharya & Qing Liu, 2021. "Reference‐dependent preferences, time inconsistency, and pay‐as‐you‐go pensions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(3), pages 1008-1030, July.
    14. Timothy Cogley & Boyan Jovanovic, 2022. "Structural Breaks in an Endogenous Growth Model," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(2), pages 666-694.
    15. Fehr, Hans, 1999. "Welfare Effects of Dynamic Tax Reforms," Beiträge zur Finanzwissenschaft, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, edition 1, volume 5, number urn:isbn:9783161470165, September.
    16. Henning Bohn, 2001. "Social Security and Demographic Uncertainty: The Risk-Sharing Properties of Alternative Policies," NBER Chapters, in: Risk Aspects of Investment-Based Social Security Reform, pages 203-246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Toshiki Tamai, 2023. "Social security, economic growth, and social welfare in an overlapping generation model with idiosyncratic TFP shock and heterogeneous workers," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(3), pages 1829-1862, July.
    18. Martin Barbie & Marcus Hagedorn & Ashok Kaul, 2006. "Fostering Within-Family Human-Capital Investment: An Intragenerational Insurance Perspective of Social Security," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 62(4), pages 503-529, December.
    19. Borgmann, Christoph, 2001. "Assessing social security: Some useful results," Discussion Papers 97, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Institut für Finanzwissenschaft.
    20. Wolfram Richter, 1993. "Intergenerational risk sharing and social security in an economy with land," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 91-103, December.
    21. David Miles & Ales Cerny, 2001. "Risk, Return and Portfolio Allocation under Alternative Pension Arrangements with Imperfect Financial Markets," CESifo Working Paper Series 441, CESifo.

    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:cdl:ucsbec:qt9r2809f0. 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: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/educsus.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.