Intergenerational risk sharing and fiscal policy

Henning Bohn

Journal of Monetary Economics, 2009, vol. 56, issue 6, 805-816

Abstract: Risk-sharing implications of alternative fiscal policies are compared in a stochastic production economy with overlapping generations. Ex ante efficiency is shown to be achievable with optimal transfers, regardless of distributional concerns. For CRRA preferences, stylized real-world policies (notably safe debt and safe pensions) are found inefficient in the direction of imposing not enough productivity risk on retirees and too much on future generations. Safe transfers can be rationalized as efficient if preferences display age-increasing risk aversion, such as habit formation. The ubiquity of safe transfers suggests that governments treat the young as more risk tolerant than older cohorts.

Keywords: Aggregate; risks; Optimal; risk; sharing; Intergenerational; transfers; Overlapping; generations; Social; security; Fiscal; policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (54)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304-3932(09)00085-3
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Intergenerational Risk Sharing and Fiscal Policy (2004)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:moneco:v:56:y:2009:i:6:p:805-816

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Monetary Economics is currently edited by R. G. King and C. I. Plosser

More articles in Journal of Monetary Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().