Social security, growth, and welfare in overlapping generations economies with or without annuities

Neil Bruce and Stephen J Turnovsky

Journal of Public Economics, 2013, vol. 101, issue C, 12-24

Abstract: We examine the impact of a stylized pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) Social Security program in an economy of overlapping generations with equilibrium growth. We adopt realistic mortality and other demographic assumptions and allow for the presence or absence of life annuities. In all cases steady-state economies with PAYGO Social Security programs grow more slowly than those without. Also, we find that lifetime expected utilities are lower for existing and future households in steady-state economies with Social Security. We also report the effect of Social Security on the age profile of consumption and explore the effects of longer life expectancy, compensating Social Security program changes, and capital subsidies.

Keywords: Social Security; Growth; Demography (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 H55 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (33)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272713000443
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
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:pubeco:v:101:y:2013:i:c:p:12-24

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2013.02.007

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Public Economics is currently edited by R. Boadway and J. Poterba

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