Pathogenesis of cholera diarrhea requires cholera toxin (CT)-mediated adenosine diphosphate (ADP)-ribosylation of stimulatory G protein (Gsα) in enterocytes. CT is an AB5 toxin with an inactive CTA1 domain linked via CTA2 to a pentameric receptor-binding B subunit. Allosterically activated CTA1 fragment in complex with NAD+ and GTP-bound ADP-ribosylation factor 6 (ARF6-GTP) differs conformation...

We investigate welfare and aggregate implications of a pay as you go (PAYG) social security system in a dynastic framework in which agents have self-control problems. The presence of these two additional factors at the same time affects individuals’ intertemporal decision problems in two opposite directions. That is, on the one hand individuals prefer to save more because of their altruistic co...

A major concern in Western Europe and especially in Germany is that with the EU eastern enlargement inflows of workers occur, which will be net beneficiaries of the domestic social security systems. We introduce a model and present evidence by comparing pension systems in the main source and target countries (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic; Germany) that show that immigrants most likely have t...

Ensuring adequate living standards to a growing number of elderly while restraining the growth of pension spending represents the main challenge for Italian pension policy. There is a need for an in-depth analysis of the economic conditions of the elderly which can help targeting resources in the coming years to the more needy groups. Using micro-data from the Bank of Italy Survey of Household ...

It is often argued that implicit taxation on continued activity of elderly workers is responsible for the widely observed trend towards early retirement. In a world of laissez-faire or of first-best efficiency, there would be no such implicit taxation. The point of this paper is that when first-best redistributive instruments are not available, because some variables are not observable, the opt...

Immigration is often seen as an instrument of adaptation for aging countries. In this paper, we evaluate, using a dynamic general equilibrium model, the contribution of migration policy in reducing the tax burden associated with the aging population in France. Four alternative scenarios, compared to a baseline scenario based on official projections, are simulated with the aim to quantify the im...

Government Debt as Insurance against Macroeconomic Risk Is there a role for debt beyond curing overaccumulation of capital? Does dynamic efficiency and the infeasibility of debt Ponzi schemes eliminate any Pareto-improving role for a government in a competitive economy with complete markets? Is there an optimal maturity structure of public debt? Using a stochastic Diamond OLG model, we tackle t...

The paper supposes, consistent with law, that single or married Social Security beneficiaries view an initiation or postponement decision in terms of a sequential decision process rather than in terms of a single evaluation made at or before the normal retirement age. The question asked at each age, according to the sequential approach introduced in this paper, is not whether to initiate now or...

The present paper compares the distributional and risk-sharing consequences of two pension reform proposals in Germany which both aim to improve the sustainability of the current system by introducing demographic variables to the benefit calculation. While the first reform proposes a so-called ” sustainability factor“ which measures the changes in the dependency ratio, the second reform propose...

We consider a small open economy in which the level of public education funding is determined by popular vote. We show that growth can be enhanced by the introduction of pay-as-you-go pensions even if the growth rate of aggregate wages falls short of the interest rate. The reason is that the PAYG system allows future retirees to partially internalize positive externalities of public education d...