Mitigating Demographic Risk Through Social Insurance / Jerry R. Green.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Green, Jerry R.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w0215.

NBER working paper series no. w0215

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Age distribution (Demography).

Age groups.

Social security.

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1977.

Cambridge, Mass. : National Bureau of Economic Research, 1977.

Summary:

A two-period lifetime overlapping generations growth model is used to evaluate the possibility that social insurance can effectively offset economic risks associated with uncertainty about the rate of population growth. Crude measures of the seriousness of this type of risk in the current United States situation are presented. Sufficient conditions on the structure of the economy for such intergenerational risk pooling to be mutually beneficial to all members of society are derived. Although it is logically possible to satisfy them1 we argue that they are unlikely to be realized empirically in an economy similar to that of the United States. Because of this failure, some more complex types of policy options are also discussed.

Notes:

Print version record

November 1977.