Public Pensions and Economic Growth

This book contains material that I have presented in seminars at the Universities of Bochum, Mannheim, Munich, Salerno, and Southern California at Los Angeles, the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna, the Max-Planck-Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, and on various international meetings and conferences. In preparing and revising the material I have benefited from comments, discussions, and advice from several colleagues. I had particularly close and friendly collaboration with Alexander Kemnitz and Robert von Weizsicker to whom I am very grateful. I am also grateful to Michele Boldrin, Axel Borsch-Supan, Friedrich Breyer, Karen Feist, Tullio Jappelli, Leo Kaas, Marco Pagano, Gerhard Schwooiauer, Carl Christian von Weizsacker, and Wolfgang Wiegard for their comments and suggestions. Finally, I would like to thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for financial support. Mannheim, January 2002 Berthold U. Wigger Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2. Public Pensions and Economic Growth: The Basic Framework . . 5 2. 1. The Analytical Elements 7 2. 1. 1. The Individuals 7 2. 1. 2. The Firms 10 2. 1. 3. The Public Pension Program 11 2. 1. 4. The Competitive Equilibrium 12 2. 2. Productivity Growth 13 2. 3. Allocative Efficiency 19 2. 4. Public Pension Reform 25 Appendix 2 . . . . . . 30 3. The Allocative Role of Intergenerational Transfers in Endogenous Growth Economies 33 3. 1. Investment Externalities, Intergenerational Transfers, and Pareto-improvements . . . . . . . 35 Contents x 3. 1. 1. A Subsidy to Private Savings 35 3. 1. 2. A Pareto-Improving Policy 38 3. 2.