Suchergebnisse

The retirement system is usually regarded as giving a fair reward for a long working career. However, only workers who have a sufficiently long life benefit from that reward, but not workers who die prematurely. To re‐examine the fairness of retirement systems under unequal lifetime, this paper compares standard retirement (i.e., individuals work before being retired) with—hypothetical—reverse retirement (i.e., individuals are retired before working). We show that, under standard assumptions, an economy with reverse retirement, once in place, converges towards a unique stationary equilibrium. At the normative level, we show that, when labor productivity declines with age, reverse retirement cannot be optimal under the utilitarian criterion (unlike standard retirement), whereas reverse retirement can be optimal under the ex post egalitarian criterion (giving priority to the worst‐off in realized terms). Finally, we show that there exists a set of policy instruments that allow a government to organize a successful transition from standard to reverse retirement.

The retirement system is usually regarded as giving a fair reward for a long working career. However, only workers who have a sufficiently long life benefit from that reward, but not workers who die prematurely. To re‐examine the fairness of retirement systems under unequal lifetime, this paper compares standard retirement (i.e., individuals work before being retired) with—hypothetical—reverse retirement (i.e., individuals are retired before working). We show that, under standard assumptions, an economy with reverse retirement, once in place, converges towards a unique stationary equilibrium. At the normative level, we show that, when labor productivity declines with age, reverse retirement cannot be optimal under the utilitarian criterion (unlike standard retirement), whereas reverse retirement can be optimal under the ex post egalitarian criterion (giving priority to the worst‐off in realized terms). Finally, we show that there exists a set of policy instruments that allow a government to organize a successful transition from standard to reverse retirement.

Abstract
The public provision of long-term care (LTC) can replace family-provided LTC when adults are not sufficiently altruistic towards their parents. But State intervention can modify the transmission of values and reduce the long-run prevalence of family altruism. To characterize the optimal LTC policy, we develop a three-period OLG model where the adult population is divided into altruistic and non-altruistic agents, and where the transmission of altruism follows a socialization process `a la Bisin and Verdier (2001, The economics of cultural transmission and the dynamics of preferences. Journal of Economic Theory 97:298–319). It is shown that public LTC benefits, by reducing parental investment in children, make the long-run survival of family altruism less likely. However, whether crowding out arises or not depends on individual preferences and on the socialization mechanism at work. We also study the incompatibility of the optimal short-run LTC benefits with long-run social welfare maximization. Finally, we discuss the robustness of our results to introducing savings and universal LTC benefits.

AbstractIndividuals save for their old days, but not all of them enjoy the old age. This paper characterizes the optimal capital accumulation in a two‐period OLG model where lifetime is risky and varies across individuals. We compare two long‐run social optima: (1) the average utilitarian optimum, where steady‐state average welfare is maximized; (2) the egalitarian optimum, where the welfare of the worst‐off at the steady‐state is maximized. It is shown that, under plausible conditions, the egalitarian optimum involves a higher capital and a lower fertility than the utilitarian optimum. Those inequalities hold also in a second‐best framework where survival conditions are exogenously linked to the capital level.

Whereas overlapping generations (OLG) models with endogenous longevity do not distinguish between the rectangularization phenomenon and the rise in limit‐longevity, these constitute two different demographic phenomena requiring a distinct modelling. This paper presents a two‐period OLG model where the probability of survival from the first to the second period, as well as the maximum length of life, are endogenously determined and influenced by public policies. The issues of existence, uniqueness and stability of a steady state are studied. It is shown that the transition towards the steady state exhibits, under mild conditions, the observed succession of phases of rectangularization and derectangularization of survival curves.

Est-il possible d'expliquer, de « rationaliser », la stratégie de confinement strict menée face à la pandémie Covid-19 durant le printemps et l'automne 2020 ? Cet article propose de revenir sur la question des fondations normatives des politiques de confinement en présence d'une pandémie. Pour ce faire, nous analysons différents critères de choix social qui peuvent être utilisés pour évaluer le degré de confinement qui s'impose lors d'une pandémie, et comparons les solutions de ces problèmes de planification sociale. Nous montrons que chacun de ces critères de choix social aborde différemment les arbitrages entre sauver des vies humaines et éviter l'expansion de la pauvreté. Tandis que le critère utilitariste et le vote majoritaire (en présence d'altruisme envers les seniors) poussent à l'adoption d'un confinement sévère, l'égalitarisme ex post (donnant une priorité absolue aux personnes les moins bien loties) et le vote majoritaire en l'absence d'altruisme mènent au confinement minimal. La politique de confinement optimale est donc peu robuste au critère de bien-être social qui est postulé.