population growth and steady state welfare in an overlapping generations model abstract in one sector growth models an increase in the population growth rate raises the economy s growth rate but lowers steady state welfare or consumption per capita i show that in a two sector overlapping generations model it can raise the steady state welfare

the optimal level of social security benefits the optimal level of social security benefits depends on balancing the protection that these benefits offer to those who lack the foresight to provide for their own old age against the welfare costs of distorting economic behavior the primary such cost is the distortion in private saving the present paper derives the level of social security benefits that is optimal in three basic cases in the first section the paper derives the optimal level of benefits for an economy in which all individuals do not anticipate retirement at all and therefore do no saving the second and third sections then derive optimal benefits for two different definitions of incomplete myopia

labor supply and the optimality of social security abstract traditional economic theory predicts that an unfunded public pension system can be justified on the basis of its ability to provide intergenerational transfers and also for its ability to provide partial insurance against mortality and labor income risks in this paper i demonstrate that the quantitative importance of these traditional roles depends on how the pension system distorts households labor supply decisions using a general equilibrium life cycle consumption model calibrated to the u s economy i show that these distortions can be large enough to erase much of the traditional welfare gains from social security i also find that this fact is robust within the range of labor supply elasticities usually encountered in the macroeconomic literature

myopia redistribution and pensions this paper reviews a number of recent contributions that study pension design with myopic individuals its objective is to explore how the presence of more or less myopic individuals affects pension design when individuals differ also in productivity this double heterogeneity gives rise to an interesting interplay between paternalistic and redistributive considerations which is at the heart of most of the results that are presented the main part of the paper is devoted to the issue of pension design when myopic individual do not save enough for their retirement because their myopic self with a high discount rate emerges when labor supply and savings decisions are made some extensions and variations are considered in the second part in particular we deal with situations where labor disutility or preferences for consumption are subject to habit formation and where sin goods have a detrimental effect on second period health myopic individuals tend to underestimate the effects of both habit formation and sinful consumption which complicates public policy

time inconsistent preferences and social security in this paper we examine the role of social security in an economy populated by overlapping generations of individuals with time inconsistent preferences who face mortality risk individual income risk and borrowing constraints we find that unfunded social security lowers the capital stock output and consumption for consumers with time consistent or time inconsistent preferences however it may raise or lower welfare depending on the strength of time inconsistency

the hyperbolic consumption model calibration simulation and empirical evaluation ur preferences for the long run tend to conflict with our short run behavior when planning for the long run we intend to meet our deadlines exercise regularly and eat healthfully but in the short run we have little interest in revising manuscripts jogging on the stairmaster and skipping the chocolate souffleala mode delay of gratification is a nice long term goal but instant gratification is disconcertingly tempting this gap between long run intentions and short run actions is apparent across a wide range of behaviors including saving choices a 1997 survey found that 76 percent of respondents believe they should be saving more for retirement looking only at respondents who believed they were at an age where you should be seriously saving already the survey found that 55 percent reported being behind in their savings and only 6 percent reported being ahead farkas and johnson 1997 the report on the survey concluded t he gaps between people s atti tudes intentions and behavior are troubling and threaten increased insecurity and dissatisfaction for people when they retire americans are simply not doing what logic and their own reasoning suggests they should be doing a 1993 luntz webber merrill lynch survey found similar answers when baby boomers were asked what percentage of your annual household income do you think you should save for retirement and what percentage of your annual

trust interlinking transactions and credit in the industrial district an essential feature of the industrial district is trust among individuals and firms within it this paper focuses mainly on trust based on investments in building up a good reputation that is a personal capital that can even substitute for collateral in obtaining credit informal credit often linked to other transactions and especially subcontracting is therefore an important way of financing economic development in the industrial district moreover the importance of trust as personal capital gives rise to a double financial intermediation in the industrial district this double intermediation constitutes a device to reduce information problems that are usually responsible for credit rationing c 1994 academic press inc copyright 1994 by oxford university press

the systems dynamics of endogenous population growth in a renewable resource based growth model abstract this paper evaluates the dynamic effects of adding an endogenous process for human population growth into a renewable resource based economic growth model endogenizing human population growth in a static constant technology form of the model gives rise to a dynamically complex system with the possibility of multiple steady states of several types and unusual comparative static responses to changes in the system s parameters adding technological progress to the model gives rise to the possibility of multiple sustainable paths for the variables in the system these results reinforce concerns raised by ecological economists about systems stability and sustainability since exogenous shocks to the system could move the economy from higher welfare to lower welfare equilibria or in the model with technological progress from higher welfare to lower welfare sustainable growth paths moreover this kind of dynamic complexity adds to the management challenge faced by policy makers who could confront the necessity of maneuvering the economy among different equilibria or sustainable growth paths

taxing sin goods and subsidizing health care we consider a two period model in the first period individuals consume two goods one is sinful and the other is not the sin good brings pleasure but has a detrimental effect on second period health and individuals tend to underestimate this effect in the second period individuals can devote part of their saving to improve their health status and thus compensate for the damage caused by their sinful consumption we consider two alternative specifications concerning this second period health care decision either individuals acknowledge that they have made a mistake in the first period out of myopia or ignorance or they persist in ignoring the detrimental effect of their sinful consumption we study the optimal linear taxes on sin good consumption saving and health care expenditures for a paternalistic social planner we compare those taxes in the two specifications we show under which circumstances the first best outcome can be decentralized and we study the second best taxes when saving is unobservable

fertility choice land and the malthusian hypothesis in a standard overlapping generations growth model with a fixed amount of land and endogenous fertility the competitive economy converges to a steady state with a zero population growth rate and positive consumption per capita the malthusian hypothesis is interpreted as a positive statement about the relationship between population growth and consumption per capita when production exhibits diminishing returns to labor and there is a fixed amount of land essential for production even when individuals care only about the number of their children and not about their children s welfare the equilibrium is such that they eventually would choose to have only one child for each adult hence if malthus s positive check on population is the result of the response of optimizing agents to competitively determined prices malthus s pessimistic conjecture is not necessarily true even though his other assumptions hold from authors

quasi hyperbolic discounting and retirement abstract some people have self control problems regularly this paper adds endogenous retirement to laibson s quasi hyperbolic discounting savings model quarterly journal of economics 112 1997 443 477 earlier selves think that the deciding self tends to retire too early and may save less to induce later retirement still earlier selves may think the pre retirement self does this too much saving more to induce early retirement the consumption pattern may be different from that with exponential discounting other observational non equivalence includes the impact of changing mandatory retirement rules or work incentives on savings and a possibly negative marginal propensity to consume out of increased future earnings naive agents are briefly considered

a model of the demand for longevity and the value of life extension we specify a demand function for longevity or quantity of life along with corresponding demand functions for indicators of quality of life and a value of health and life extension function we show that the demand for health must be derived in conjunction with that for longevity and the related consumption plan and that all choices depend on initial individual endowments and terminal conditions our comparative dynamics predictions indicate that optimal health and longevity are increasing functions of endowed wealth rather than necessarily current income that improvements in opportunities to produce health can accentuate the differences between endowed health and attained longevity levels and that the value individuals ascribe to their health may be increasing over a good portion of their life cycle we use this model to analyze observed empirical variations in levels and trends of life expectancy and in exposure to health risks across different population groups

causal relationships between infant mortality and fertility in developedand less developed countries fertility reduction seems to be a nearly universal feature of the development of modern secular societies 5 208 the lagged response of fertility to reductions in mortality manifested in the lack of coordinated fertility control programs has historically resulted in high growth rates of population in the less developed countries e g latin american countries 1 2 over the past two decades the causal relationships between infant mortality and fertility have been a controversial issue 16 29 since the direction of this causality is not established on empirical grounds many existing estimates of fertility demand functions and infant survival production and demand functions are marred by simultaneous equation bias the purpose of this study is to examine the dynamic relationships between infant mortality and fertility by applying time series techniques to the annual data on these variables for economically developed countries and for economically less developed countries first i examine causal relationships within a two variable model infant mortality and fertility rates for a sample of economically developed countries including the western european countries of denmark finland france norway portugal switzerland and the united kingdom the u k and the united states u s a the time periods studied are 1939 74 for most of the european countries 1942 74 and 1944 74 for the u k and 1923 77 for u s a 3

looking at the population problem through the prism of heterogeneity welfare and policy analyses upon introducing heterogeneity and dynamics into a model of the demand for children a problem of optimal population is defined and analyzed it is shown that from the perspective of social welfare better educated individuals produce too few children while less educated individuals produce too many children and all individuals invest too little in the education of their children the impact of several policy tools geared at addressing the population problem is investigated in particular how child allowances and other tax subsidy policies can be harnessed to enhance welfare and how and why early childhood education programs can mitigate the population problem

mortality decline and long run economic growth this paper examines the impacts of mortality decline on long run growth in a dynastic family two sector growth model with social security a rise in longevity has direct effects on fertility human capital investment and growth as well as indirect effects through increasing unfunded social security contributions both the direct and indirect effects depend on the relative strength of the tastes for the number and welfare of children and may have different signs the net effects of rising longevity on fertility tend to be negative but positive on human capital investment and growth c 2001 elsevier science s a all rights reserved

an intergenerational model of population growth the problem of population growth has been only partially formulated in an intertemporal context therefore a link between population theory and economic growth theory is still missing this paper attempts to provide such a link by analyzing an intergenerational model of optimum population growth the model accommodates the idea that decisions on increases in population should consider the new population s quality of life this concept is elaborated upon in a static framework by gary becker and gregg lewis dennis de tray and robert willis other literature on population growth such as harold votey disregards this consideration altogether 2 more explicitly this paper assumes that the utility of each generation is a function of the level of its consumption and the number and utility of the newly born people we are thus led to consider the utility of an infinite number of generations this model differs from paul samuelson s intergenerational model of pure consumption in which the utility of each generation depends only on that generation s own consumption recently philip neher 1971 analyzed a model of fertility in primitive economies it is based on the assumption that parents use children as investments to insure future consumption needs neher s analysis focuses entirely on the pension motive for having children 3 our model assumes that fertility is determined so as to balance the parents welfare derived from additional children against that derived from the children s quality of life we first outline a general model of optimum population growth in order to discuss explicitly various economic aspects of population we use a simple case in the analysis section i sets up the basic model

household borrowing constraints fertility dynamics and economic growth abstract in this article we provide a model of growth with endogenous fertility in which multiple steady states derive from the modelling of household liquidity constraints we put forward an innovative approach to the finance of higher education by assuming that youths can borrow because their parents guarantee the loan repayment with their income young individuals can renege on their debt and lenders provide them credit only up to an amount which is commensurate to a collateral provided to children by their families parents care about children s education and choose a collateral which depends positively on family income and negatively on family size a stable trap of low development is characterized by high fertility rates and low investment in human capital on the other hand in economies with a sufficiently low starting rate of fertility borrowing constraints gradually vanish and the process of growth reaches a steady state characterized by the optimality of fertility and schooling choices government subsidies to education may reduce population growth and promote human capital investment if fertility at steady states is lower than thresholds

from local networks of smes to virtual districts evidence from recent trends in italy abstract industrial districts as local networks of small and medium enterprises smes rooted their competitiveness in a mix of economic relationships and social ties recently network technologies have promised gains of efficiency through a reduction in transaction costs and showed new commercial opportunities for small firms despite the morphological similarities between industrial districts and network technologies a longitudinal analysis of ict diffusion within italian districts shows that the foreseen convergence between the district economic model and new technologies should not be taken for granted the observed specific evolutionary paths concerning technology innovation in local systems also opens up issues of economic policy

critical survey endogenous growth theory a critical assessment a critical assessment is made of endogenous growth theory from the perspective of recent developments within economics as a discipline these include its increasing mathematical formalisation its focus upon microfoundations the casual use of econometrics to test models and the incorporation of factors that have traditionally been outside mainstream economics it is found that the theory focuses upon market imperfections and technological progress in a variety of ways and reconstructs their impact upon the macroeconomy as a growth rather than as a level effect whilst the growth rate is endogenised this leads to the problem of multiple equilibria and extremely complex dynamics the generalisation from exogenous growth theory is however associated with even more extreme assumptions and analytical distance from the socioeconomic processes of growth itself copyright 2000 by oxford university press

an economic analysis of fertility market participation and marriage behaviour in recent japan this research studies determinants of the gold futures price volatility in thailand futures exchange using linear regression model and generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity garch model the data sample consists of daily settlement price volume and open interest of gold futures from the first trading day in thailand futures exchange to june 26 2013 we examine the nearby futures contract which is switched over to the next maturing contract one day before the expiration date the results of both models confirm that price returns volatility of gold futures increases when 1 the futures contract approaches expiration 2 trading volume increases and 3 open interest decreases we also present an analysis of the role of covariance between changes in spot prices and carry costs in explaining the maturity effect in futures our results provide very strong evidence in favor of this negative covariance hypothesis therefore the results of this study would be of interest to investors due to their importance to forecast future prices of gold hedgers should adjust their optimal hedging position according to volatility changes the analysis of gold futures volatility also insists the clearing house in setting different margin requirements as each contract approaches maturity differently margin requirements should be raised for nearby gold futures contract as its volatility increases either an increase in trading volume or a decrease in open interest should also increase margin requirements for gold futures

population and neoclassical economic growth a new child policy perspective abstract using the basic olg model of neoclassical growth with endogenous fertility we show that a child tax can be used as a single instrument to actually raise population growth in the long run while also raising per capita income

the problem of population and growth a review of the literature from malthus to contemporary models of endogenous population and endogenous growth abstract this paper deals with the evolution of the literature on the problem of population and growth from the classical period to the recent literature on endogenous growth and development the problem concerns two distinct issues 1 how to explain the observed covariation of the levels and rates of growth of per capita income and population size over time and space and 2 how to improve the human condition represented by these variables through an accommodating social policy the evolution of the literature we survey is reflected by the progressive treatment of key variables as endogenous rather than exogenous to the growth process it is also reflected by a shift from the historical concern about population explosion and its implications for growth to the more recent concern about the association between growth and population implosion in many developed countries

externalities and optimal taxation this paper reexamines the optimal tax design problem income and commodities in the presence of externalities the nature of the second best and the choice of the tax instruments are motivated by the informational structure in the economy the main results are i environmental levies linear or nonlinear differ in formula from pigouvian taxes by the expressions for the optimal tax on private goods ii externalities do not affect commodity tax formulas linear and nonlinear for private goods iii externalities do not affect the income tax structure if commodity taxes are nonlinear and affect it if commodity taxes are linear and iv a general income tax plus strictly pigouvian taxes are sufficient for efficient taxation if individuals of different types have identical marginal rates of substitution at any given consumption bundle

direct versus indirect taxation the design of the tax structure revisited this article studies the optimal direct indirect tax mix problem when individuals differ in several unobservable characteristics productivity and endowments it presents general expressions for the optimal commodity tax rates and proves that contrary to atkinson and stiglitz s 1976 result differential commodity taxation remains a useful instrument of tax policy even if preferences are separable between labor and produced goods when cross substitution effects are zero the expressions resemble traditional many households ramsey rules in a cobb douglas illustration where endowments differ only in good 1 interpreted as wealth the tax on good 2 provides an indirect way to tax the unobservable wealth

long term care policy myopia and redistribution this paper examines whether myopia misperception of the old age dependency risk and private insurance market loading costs can justify public long term care ltc provision and or the subsidization of private insurance individuals differ in dependency risk productivity and degree of risk misperception the former two are positively correlated because of the longevity factor and social insurance tends to be regressive a first best solution requires subsidization of private insurance and or public provision of the appropriate level of ltc the support for these instruments is less strong in a second best setting as there may be a conflict between the correction for myopia and redistribution public ltc provision is never optimal when private insurance markets are fair irrespective of the proportion of myopic individuals and their degree of misperception under loading costs the solution may require a combination of private and public insurance or even rely solely on public provision

some welfare theoretic implications of endogenous fertility this paper explores the implications of endogenous fertility for inter and intragenerational equity and for intergenerational efficiency considering equity requires social welfare criteria with respect to the issue of intragenerational equity 2 possible criteria in relation to the laissez faire solution are 1 total utility across generations and 2 average or per capita utility when population size is not fixed the 2 are not the same when fertility is not endogenous it is possible to consider noncoercive policies for achieving socially optimal population size or rate growth in general child allowances or taxes and subsidies to future consumption are sufficient to achieve the desired outcome with respect to within generation income distribution a system of child allowances and tax exemptions designed to alleviate poverty and reduce inequality may actually worsen the situation when both fertility and labor supply are endogenous discussing the issue of efficiency for members of the current generation does not require a social welfare function neither diminishing returns nor the existence of public goods unless financed by distortionary taxes leads to market failure from this point of view but the inability of parents to enforce transfers among their offspring or to bargain with the families of the potential spouses of their children may indeed lead to market failure finally the paper examines the implications for fertility of the inefficiency in an economy resulting from the absence of a capital market for transferring from present to future consumption in this case the welfare improving introduction of a capital market may increase the rate of growth of population when parents value children for themselves as well as a means of providing sustenance in old age

mean variance analysis of supply chains under wholesale pricing and profit sharing schemes in this paper we explore the use of a wholesale pricing and profit sharing scheme wpps for coordinating supply chains under the mean variance mv decision framework we first analytically establish the necessary and sufficient conditions for coordinating the centralized supply chain by wpss we then show that there exists a unique equilibrium of the stackelberg game with wpps in the decentralized case after that we discuss the information asymmetric case in which the retailer can be benefited by pretending to be more risk averse finally we propose a new measure for the manufacturer to prevent this cheating from happening insights are generated

fertility and pension programs in ldcs a model of mutual reinforcement surveys of the determinants of fertility decline often include adoption of state sponsored pension programs among the many socioeconomic changes responsible for smaller average family size old age insurance appears in analyses of the western demographic experience pension programs have also been suggested as a policy tool that third world governments might use to reduce fertility 2 the theoretical literature on the pension fertility relationship has thus far emphasized the substitution of old age benefits provided by the state for help received from children and the implications of this substitution for the value of children and desired family size quantitative analysis of the pension fertility relationship has likewise proceeded in terms of the presumed impact of old age insurance 3 very little attention has been given to the possibility that pension programs might be implemented in response to fertility decline and to consequent shifts in the demand for old age security and in the ability of the government to finance such programs it is even possible that the pension response to falling levels of fertility could be mistaken for the assumed fertility effect of old age security programs our purpose is to consider and analyze both directions of effect the literature addressing the determinants of pension expenditure has not yet been linked with the literature addressing the determinants of fertility doing so will not only increase our understanding of fertility patterns but will make an important contribution to the study of how demographic demand factors influence social welfare policy for example aaron and wilensky have utilized the percentage of the population over 65 in their models of pension expenditure 4 although

the effects of child mortality changes on fertility choice and parental welfare empirical studies have overwhelmingly shown that a lower child mortality rate leads to lower fertility yet it has not been possible to satisfactorily analyze this relationship in even the simplest theoretical models this paper attempts to bridge this gap between theory and the empirical literature the paper also presents results on the effects of child mortality changes on parental welfare the analysis captures the dynamic stochastic feature of fertility choice subsumes other endogeneous choices e g the quality of the children and treats the number of children as a discrete variable this added realism is important for the analysis

intergenerational trade longevity and economic growth we develop an overlapping generations model of endogenous growth in which human capital is the engine of growth and the generations are linked through material and emotional interdependencies within the family parents invest in their children to achieve both old age support care and emotional gratification and material support from children is determined through self enforcing implicit contracts we show that optimal intergenerational trade can then lead to maximization of growth opportunities our model produces a theory of the demographic transition linking longevity fertility and economic growth we also show that while population aging may raise the growth rate an increase in young age longevity is likely to produce a greater increase in the growth rate and a reduction in the fertility rate in a growth equilibrium these predictions and the model s implications concerning the behavior of private savings during the takeoff period appear consistent with empirical evidence

family economics and macro behavior in this 1987 presidential address to the american economic association the author explores the contributions of the field of family economics to macroeconomic analysis the focus is on family behavior as an active endogenous factor that both affects and is affected by the evolution of the economy much of the time is spent on long term economic growth although i also discuss short and long cycles in economic activity and the interaction between overlapping generations through social security transmission of inequality and in other ways many conclusions in these and presumably other macro areas change radically when family choices get the attention they deserve excerpt

endogenous fertility ricardian equivalence and debt management policy abstract the paper develops a model in which dynastic families optimally determine fertility government debt represents a tax on future generations and on childbearing the ricardian equivalence hypothesis does not hold debt is welfare reducing in that it distorts the fertility decision an increase in government debt induces a decline in fertility and an increase in the steady state capital labor ratio if a government inherits an existing stock of debt the first best policy is to eliminate the debt immediately in other situations the optimal debt management policy will not in general entail a total elimination of the debt

old age pensions and fertility in rural areas of less developed countries some evidence from mexico this paper reviews the theoretical relationship between old age pensions and human fertility and offers preliminary evidence from mexico on the direction and magnitude of the effect on fertility of the introduction of a formal old age pension system the security motive is an untested but plausible hypothesis especially for rural areas where alternative methods for caring for the elderly if they exist are likely to be relatively risky and unprofitable a number of different effects can theoretically be expected following introduction of a system of old age pensions in such areas including a savings reduction effect and life cycle effects such as effects on the time phasing of labor force participation and of consumption and effects on family fragmentation and intergenerational transfers and on the sex composition of the labor force and the allocation of family resources between the sexes information costs uncertainties about various aspects of the social security system and the possibility of differences between desired and actual fertility must also be considered given the long list of possible effects and offsetting influences and uncertainties about the magnitudes of such effects the actual outcome can only be resolved empirically data on sugar cane workers who began to be covered by a social security system in 1963 in 34 contiguous rural municipalities in the papaloapan river basin in southeastern mexico were used to test the relationship a regression analysis of the determinants of change in the child woman ratios in the 34 municipalities from 1960 70 indicated among other findings that the proxy used for the influence of participation in an old age pension system had a significantly negative effect on fertility an increase in social security participation from 0 to 50 would appear to reduce the child woman ratio by more than 1 10 despite the simplicity of the testing procedure shortcomings in the available data and the possibility of specification bias the results indicate that the security motive may be important and requires further empirical and theoretical research

income distribution non convexities and the fertility income relationship this paper presents a model of inequality income determination and fertility that is consistent with aggregated stylized facts and individual survey data on fertility and income it shows that indivisibilities in human capital investments limit the possibility of trade off between the quality and the quantity of children this generates a non monotonic relationship between income and fertility at the micro level on the aggregate the total fertility rate can increase or decrease with income depending on the income distribution of the population and on the private cost of education

forced saving redistribution and nonlinear social security schemes this paper studies the design of nonlinear social security schemes when individuals differ in productivity and in their degree of myopia myopic individuals may not save enough for their retirement the welfare function is paternalistic the rate of time preference of the farsighted is used for both types we show that the solution does not necessarily imply forced savings for the myopics paternalistic considerations are mitigated by incentive effects numerical results suggest that as the proportion of myopic individuals increases there is less redistribution and more forced saving and the desirability of social security increases

economic geography fertility and migration abstract this paper analyzes the relationship among economic geography fertility and migration the empirical evidence presented reveals that persistent regional variations in fertility exist within a country and that regional total fertility rates are negatively related to regional population density a two period overlapping generations model of endogenous fertility incorporating n regions agglomeration economies and congestion diseconomies is constructed to explain this negative relationship while agglomeration economies have both positive income and negative substitution effects on fertility congestion diseconomies have a negative income effect on it combined with the mobility of people interaction among these effects generates the negative relationship as a steady state equilibrium outcome it is also shown that net migration from regions with lower population density to regions with higher population density occurs in an equilibrium which in turn maintains the regional variations in fertility

pay as you go public pensions with endogenous fertility abstract veall s 1986 model of public pensions is generalized to allow for endogenous fertility we show that gifts to the old which can be viewed as social security contributions are always positive in the steady state an optimal stationary allocation is sustainable if savings are zero and fertility is exogenous however the optimal allocation is in general not sustainable in particular if a government enforces a social security plan setting the pension level at the optimal gifts and individuals optimize under the pension constraint the resulting sustainable outcome is in general different from either the optimal or nash outcome

public pensions as optimal social contracts abstract a simple overlapping generations model is modified to allow for an externality experienced by the young from consumption by the elderly this sets up a game between generations in which one generation s strategy may be to save too little and rely on gifts from the young e g public assistance for retirement income social security can therefore be viewed as a pareto optimal contract to restore efficient intertemporal allocation a funded public pension plan corresponds to forced saving but is vulnerable in that the next young generation may stop contributing rely on its children for retirement assistance and meanwhile reap the consumption externality from the current elderly s social security benefits this suggests a forced giving or pay as you go type of compulsory pension plan such as exists in most nations which also has the advantage of aiding the initial old generation and therefore generating an immediate consumption externality for the initial young the approach can also be used to explain other aspects of existing social security

the duality of collaboration inducements and opportunities in the formation of interfirm linkages i argue that the linkage formation propensity of firms is explained by simultaneously examining both inducement and opportunity factors drawing upon resource based and social network theory literatures i identify three forms of accumulated capital technical commercial and social that can affect a firm s inducements and opportunities to form linkages firms possessing these capital stocks enjoy advantages in linkages formation however firms lacking these accumulated resources can still form linkages if they generate a radical technological breakthrough thus i identify paths to linkage formation for leading as well as peripheral firms i test these arguments with longitudinal data on technical collaborative linkages in the global chemicals industry copyright 2000 john wiley sons ltd

explaining pay as you go financed public pension systems abstract the existence of pay as you go payg financed public pension plans is usually explained by median voter models or by strategic non saving behavior by young generations here it is claimed that both types of models are neither sufficient nor necessary for explaining payg systems

an econometric analysis of the old age security motive for childbearing a switching regression for birth interval lengths with endogenous switching is developed to test mead cains contention that parents fertility decisions arise from lexicographic preferences for old age security the model is estimated as a survival model using malaysian data assuming that contraceptors constitute the group of parents who have attained the minimal number of children with which they feel their old age support is secure strong support for cains concept of old age security as the principal interest of those parents who have not yet attained a sufficient number of children appears in these data however the income effect accompanying the provision of alternative means of old age support generates an ambiguous effect on subsequent fertility excerpt

endogenous fertility and optimal population size pareto optimality which is the standard criterion of efficiency in general equilibrium models takes population size as given and therefore cannot be directly applied to analyze the question of optimal population size the criterion then for optimal population size must be based on a more restrictive definition of optimality this paper extends peter diamonds 1965 golden golden rule growth model by assuming that individuals derive utility from their own consumptionand from their own children offspring are assumed to consume resources before reaching adulthood the authors show that the optimal steady state utility yields a higher population growth rate when it converges to the golden rule allocation they then demonstrate that a voluntary social security program in which the size of the transfer to a particular agent is directly tied to his own fertility leads the competitive allocation to be identical to the allocation corresponding to the maximum of the steady state utility of the representative individual

changing world prices women s wages and the fertility transition sweden 1860 1910 this time series analysis examines during 1860 1910 the impact of changes in local prices of agricultural commodities on wages among men and women in sweden and the impact of changes in wages on fertility decline child mortality urbanization and improved social conditions linear ordinary least squares models are set up to determine whether demand induced increases in womens wages relative to mens are significant factors in explaining swedish total fertility rates data are obtained from 25 counties and the city of stockholm among pooled observations for six time periods during 1860 64 and 1910 14 this period is marked by a total fertility decline of 28 a marital fertility decline of 26 and a child mortality decline of 52 explanatory variables are the relative prices of main agricultural outputs employment outside of agriculture the proportion of urban population and the child mortality rate findings indicate a significant relationship between child mortality and total fertility and specific fertility rates among women aged 20 39 years a doubling of the male real wage rate was significantly associated with earlier marriage higher birth rates among women aged 15 29 years and lower birth rates among women aged 35 49 years the ratio of male wages to female wages was associated with a decline in birth rates at all ages with the exception of teenagers 66 of fertility increase was due to declines in child mortality but this increase was counterbalanced by fertility decline among older women child mortality and urbanization depressed marital fertility male wages increased the proportion married a 10 increase in the male female wage rate was associated with a 25 reduction in the total fertility rate another 25 increase in the male female wage rate was associated with a 50 reduction in child mortality it is concluded that the value of womens time had a key impact on the swedish fertility transition

population technology and growth from malthusian stagnation to the demographic transition and beyond this paper develops a unied growth model that captures the historical evolution of population technology and output it encompasses theendogenous transitionbetween three regimes that have characterized economic development the economy evolves from amalthusianregime wheretechnologicalprogressis slow andpopulationgrowthprevents anysustainedriseinincomepercapita intoapost malthusianregime wheretechnological progress rises and population growth absorbs only part of output growth ultimately a demographic transition reverses the positive relationship between income and population growth andtheeconomyentersamoderngrowthregimewithreducedpopulationgrowth

the gains from pension reform we classify social security pension systems in three dimensions actuarial versus non actuarial funded versus unfunded and defined benefit versus defined contribution systems recent pension reforms are discussed in terms of these dimensions shifting to a more actuarial system reduces labor market distortions although limiting the scope for redistribution shifting to a funded system may increase saving redistribute income to future generations and distort contermporary labor supply a partial shift to a funded system helps individuals diversify their pension assets a shift from a defined benefit to a defined contribution system means that income risk will be shifted from workers to pensioners

cropping pattern mechanization child labor and fertility behavior in a farming economy rural egypt tractor and the use of mechanical irrigation is increasing in the countryside the significant policy issue is the role of government in encouraging or discouraging continued labor saving mechanization present policy substantially encourages mechanization diesel oil is available at prices considerably lower than those in many other countries village banks provide farmers with equipment loans at rates below commercial levels machinery is imported at favorable foreign exchange rates and is exempted from import duties the most telling impact of these policies has been on the rapidly growing use of tractors and irrigation pumps both of which are believed to displace labor especially that of children this article addresses the question of whether such changes have indeed had the desired effect on child employment and family size recent developments in the egyptian agricultural sector also reveal significant changes in crop patterns these favor fruit and vegeta

capital income taxation when inherited wealth is not observable this paper extends the atkinson stiglitz model of direct and indirect taxation to a dynamic setting with two unobservable characteristics productive ability and inherited wealth bequests are motivated by the joy of giving a child s inheritance is a random variable with a probability distribution that depends on his parent s investment in a bequest technology public borrowing is assumed and implies the modified golden rule we study the optimal tax policy when two instruments are available a non linear wage income tax and a proportional tax on capital income we show that the second instrument ought in general to be used but that the tax rate is not necessarily positive however a positive tax rate is more likely when there is a positive correlation between inherited wealth and innate ability

the consumption tax in the presence of altruistic cash and human capital bequests with endogenous fertility decisions abstract we provide an analysis of the consumption tax policy in the presence of cash bequests human capital investments in children and endogenous fertility decisions it is shown that the consumption tax is no longer neutral if the tax rate is constant over the taxpayer s life cycle labor supply is exogenous and the parent expects the offspring to pay the same tax rate if the number of children is chosen optimally by the parent neutrality breaks down because the shadow prices of both bequests and fertility are interlinked it is more expensive to produce a child the larger either bequest is and it is more expensive to make a bequest of either type to each child the larger the number of children produced several examples are provided where imposing the consumption tax induces an increase in the number of children produced and a decrease in net capital formation

vintage human capital demographic trends and endogenous growth we study how economic growth is affected by demographics in an overlapping generations model with a realistic survival law individuals optimally chose the dates at which they leave school to enter the labor market and at which they retire endogenous growth arises thanks to the accumulation of generation specific human capital favorable shifts in the survival probabilities always induce longer schooling and later retirement but have an ambiguous effect on growth the relationship between the growth of population and per capita growth is hump shaped increases in longevity can be responsible for a switch from a no growth regime to a sustained growth regime and for a positive relationship between fertility and growth to vanish

intergenerational transfers and demographic transition abstract this paper presents an analysis of demographic transition based on the endogenous evolution of intergenerational transfers along an economy s endogenous path of development two period lived agents belonging to overlapping generations choose optimally their desired levels of consumption and fertility together with their desired sizes of transfers to both parents and children parents are more efficient than children in producing output but some parental time must be devoted to child rearing at low levels of development fertility is high and the flow of net intergenerational transfers is from the young to the old at high levels of development fertility is low and the flow of net transfers is from the old to the young these results accord strongly with empirical observations and the analysis may be seen as formalising for the first time a long standing and well respected hypothesis in the demographic transition literature

malthus was right after all poor relief and birth rates in southeastern england the payment of child allowances to laborers with large families was widespread in early nineteenth century england this paper tests thomas malthus s hypothesis that child allowances caused the birth rate to increase a cross sectional regression model is estimated to explain variations in birth rates across parishes in 1826 30 birth rates are found to be related to child allowances income and the availability of housing as malthus contended the paper concludes by examining the role played by the adoption of child allowances after 1795 in the fertility increase of the early nineteenth century

voting over type and generosity of a pension system when some individuals are myopic this paper studies the determination through majority voting of a pension scheme when society consists of far sighted and myopic individuals all individuals have the same basic preferences but myopics tend to adopt a short term view instant gratification when dealing with retirement saving and labor supply consequently they will find themselves with low consumption after retirement and regret their insufficient savings decisions henceforth when voting they tend to commit themselves into forced saving we consider a pension scheme that is characterized by two parameters the payroll tax rate that determines the size or generosity of the system and the bismarckian factor that determines its redistributiveness individuals vote sequentially we examine how the introduction of myopic agents affects the generosity and the redistributiveness of the pension system our main result is that a flat pension system is always chosen when all individuals are of one kind all far sighted or all myopic while a less redistributive system may be chosen if society is composed of both myopic and far sighted agents furthermore while myopic individuals tend to prefer larger payroll taxes than their far sighted counterparts the generosity of the system does not always increase with the proportion of myopics