Pension benefit rules depend on individual history far more than taxes do, and age plays a much larger role in pension determination than in tax determination. Apart from some simulation studies, theoretical studies of optimal tax design typically contain neither a mandatory pension system nor the behavioral dimensions that lie behind justifications commonly offered for mandatory pensions. Conv...

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 o...

In this paper, we identify the economic system in which occupational pension schemes operate. This system includes all parties to the pension arrangement, particularly the members of the scheme and the shareholders of the sponsoring company. This requires us to model the pension scheme not as a self-contained fund, but simultaneously alongside the company, and to recognise its interaction with ...

The shifting boundary between work and retirement and the always-emergent features of retirement practice create a wide opportunity for scholarship and research. After an overview of the scope of retirement research, this article articulates 4 areas that deserve special attention in the present historical circumstance: studies of the form and timing of retirement exits, the labor market for old...

This article describes and reports on the degree to which Social Security and private pensions replaced preretirement earnings for a sample of individuals retiring in the early 1970's. Although simple in concept, replacement rates can be defined in many different ways. Because no one definition is best for all purposes, several are considered, and the contexts in which each might be utilized ar...

Although immigration of workers generates a positive externality on members of domestic pension systems, many countries are very reluctant to allow foreigners into their labor markets. In a political economic framework, we explain this voting outcome by considering a young unskilled median voter who faces – in addition to a reduction of contribution rates – negative effects from immigration as ...