Social insurance against a short life: Ante-Mortem versus post-mortem policies

Gregory Ponthiere

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Welfare States do not insure citizens against the risk of premature death, i.e., the risk of having a short life. Using a dynamic OLG model with risky lifetime, this paper compares two insurance devices reducing well-being volatility due to the risk of early death: (i) an ante-mortem age-based statistical discrimination policy that consists of an allowance given to all young adults (including the unidentified adults who will die early); (ii) a post-mortem subsidy on accidental bequests due to early death. Each policy is financed by taxing old-age income. Whereas each device can yield full insurance, the youth allowance is shown to imply a higher lifetime well-being at the stationary equilibrium. Given that the marginal utility of consumption exceeds the marginal utility of giving when being dead, the youth allowances system is, despite imperfect targeting, a more efficient insurance mechanism against the risk of early death.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in Social Choice and Welfare, 2024, ⟨10.1007/s00355-024-01571-w⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Working Paper: Social Insurance against a Short Life: Ante-Mortem versus Post-Mortem Policies (2023)
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:hal:journl:hal-04876023

DOI: 10.1007/s00355-024-01571-w

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().