1,721,120 research outputs found

    Ante litteram “cooperative thinking”: Ramsey, Harrod and Keynes about the Life Cycle Hypothesis and economic growth

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    In this paper we reconstruct the early insights that Frank Ramsey and Roy Harrod provided into the Life Cycle Hypothesis (LCH) in their 1928 and 1948 contributions, respectively, well before the publication of the 1954 Modigliani-Brumberg (M-B) formalized framework. In 1970 Modigliani acknowledged Harrod’s forerunning contribution to the LCH, that was included in the Lecture Two of his 1948 volume Towards a Dynamic Economics. Yet, he never mentioned Ramsey’s insight on the LCH, presented in the pathbreaking article “A mathematical theory of saving” published in The Economic Journal in 1928. A fact that is at odds with the large credit that the two English economists, who were both mentored by John M. Keynes, had in the academic community since 1950s. Adding oddity to oddity, although largely drawing from Ramsey’s analytical framework, in his book Harrod himself cites Ramsey’s work only in a footnote on a secondary issue. We offer in this work a reconstruction of these facts, ending with the analysis of the interplay between Harrod and Keynes in the elaboration of Harrod’s Fundamental Equation on economic growth, which also emerges in M-B’s LCH model

    The Italian Pension System from the First Oil Shock to the Treaty of Maastricht: Facts and Debate at the Origin of the 1990s Reforms

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    This article surveys the most significant steps in the history of the Italian pension and social protection system from the early 1970s up to the beginning of the period of the great reforms launched in the 1990s. It provides, first and foremost, a quantitative analysis of the phenomenon under study, on the basis of the historical series produced by ISTAT (2002), and evaluates both the extent and composition of the increments that characterized the pattern of expenditure during this period. Secondly, the analysis seeks to shed light on the underlying causes of this increase and of the distributive distortions present in the Italian pension system. To this end, the debate among the economists of the era is reconstructed, with focus on the positions assumed by some of the most authoritative figures. Finally, the article addresses the problems and the debate concerning the institutional framework that contributed to the runaway expenditure

    Social Security Incentives for Retirement in Italy

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    The present work is the first of a two-paper project aiming at bringing a new empirical contribution to literature on retirement, with particular focus on Italy. In this paper I carry out an analysis of Social Security-provided incentives for early retirement and of the main changes brought about by the two major early 90s reforms. For this purpose I use a sample of male employees drawn from the Bank of Italy Survey on Wealth and Income of Italian Households (SHIW) and I calculate both “static” and “dynamic” SS incentive measures: as for the latter, I discriminate between “one year” and “lifetime” measures of the accumulation opportunities of SS entitlements and suggest new measures to account for the trade-off comprised in the decision of retirement. The analysis documents strong early retirement incentives for Public Sector employees and relevant binding eligibility constraints for Private Sector workers. In general prosecution of work beyond age 60 has been dramatically discouraged due to the actuarial unfairness of pension formula. As for the effects of the SS reforms, it emerges that the early 1990s changes will produce a strong cut of benefits in the long run, while for current employees the most important changes have been the reduction of benefit indexation, the temporary restrictions and actuarial penalizations on seniority retirement. It turns out that especially Public Sector employees and younger cohorts undergo the strongest benefit cuts. All in all, to the extent to which such benefit cuts have been perceived by individuals, one would expect reforms to have induced anticipated exits from labor force among older cohorts

    Social Security and Retirement Decisions in Italy: An Empirical Insight

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    In the present paper I focus on the measurement of Social Security incentives to early retirement enjoyed by Italian male employees during the late 1980s up to year 2000 and investigate the role played by such incentives and by other socio-economic variables in determining the shape of retirement hazards. Computations, carried out on a panel sample drawn from the SHIW dataset, demonstrate that continuing to work beyond age 60 was strongly discouraged prior to 1990s reforms. Such reforms appear to have especially affected Public Sector workers and younger cohorts. The econometric estimations bring evidence of forward-looking behavior, since individuals do appear to take into account the lifetime path of Social Security incentive changes. Finally, the analysis suggests that such characteristics should be carefully accounted for by any reform aiming at improving the activity rates
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