Journal Article
Live long and prosper: challenges ahead for an aging population
Groshen, Erica L.; Klitgaard, Thomas (2002-02)
Over the next thirty years, the percentage of people who are 65 and over will grow rapidly while the percentage of people in their working years will decline. This shift in the age distribution of the population will put enormous pressure on social security systems in the United States, Germany, and Japan as the number of workers whose payroll taxes fund each retiree drops sharply.
Current Issues in Economics and Finance , Volume 8 , Issue Feb

Working Paper
The birth and growth of the social-insurance state : explaining old-age and medical insurance across countries
Johnson, Richard; Cutler, David M. (2001)
We seek to explain why countries have adopted national Old-Age Insurance and Health Insurance programs. Theoretical work has posited several factors that could lead to this adoption: the strain from expanding capitalism; the need for political legitimacy; the desire to transfer to similar people; increased wealth; and the outcome of leviathan government. We relate the probability of a country?s creating social insurance to proxies for each of these theories. We find weak evidence that the probability of adopting a system declines with increases in wealth and with greater ethnic heterogeneity. ...
Research Working Paper , Paper RWP 01-13

Journal Article
Social security and the consumer price index for the elderly
Lagakos, David; Hobijn, Bart (2003-05)
Some argue that social security benefits should be adjusted using a price index that reflects the spending habits of the elderly rather than those of workers. This study suggests that if such an index were adopted today, over the next forty years benefit levels would increase and the social security trust fund could become insolvent up to five years sooner than projected.
Current Issues in Economics and Finance , Volume 9 , Issue May

Journal Article
Four funerals and a wedding: We're growing older and it won't be cheap
Clement, Douglas (2004-03)
Fedgazette , Volume 16 , Issue Mar , Pages 2-5

Journal Article
Graying of the Ninth
Clement, Douglas (2004-03)
Ninth District counties are older than most. Terms like "demographic time bomb" exaggerate the situation, but our aging population presents significant economic challenges-and opportunities
Fedgazette , Volume 16 , Issue Mar , Pages 1

Journal Article
Welcome to retirement. Now back to work
Clement, Douglas (2004-03)
Fedgazette , Volume 16 , Issue Mar , Pages 8-10

Working Paper
The effects of annuities, bequests, and aging in an overlapping generations model of endogenous growth.
Pecchenino, Rowena A.; Pollard, Patricia S. (1995)
In this paper, we examine the effects of introducing actuarially fair annuity markets into an overlapping generations model of endogenous growth. We find the complete annuitization of agents' wealth is not, in general, dynamically optimal; that the degree of annuitization that is dynamically optimal depends nonmonotonically on the expected length of retirement and on the pay-as-you-go social security tax rate. We find that the government has an incentive to restrict the availability of actuarially fair annuities contracts, and that it can often move the economy from a pay-as-you-go to a ...
Working Papers , Paper 1995-008

Journal Article
Is gray the new gold?
Clement, Douglas (2004-05)
The elderly are often portrayed as an economic burden, but many see seniors as a target market. For states and communities, the net economic benefit is hard to gauge
Fedgazette , Volume 16 , Issue May , Pages 9-12

Journal Article
Quiet revolution
Burke, William (1974)
FRBSF Economic Letter