Social Security, Benefit Claiming and Labor Force Participation: A Quantitative General Equilibrium Approach

We build a general equilibrium model of overlapping generations that incorporates endogenous saving, labor force participation, work hours, and Social Security benefit claims. Using this model, we study the impact of three Social Security reforms: 1) a reduction in benefits and payroll taxes; 2) an increase in the earliest retirement age, to sixty-four from sixty-two; and 3) an increase in the normal retirement age, to sixty-eight from sixty-six. We find that a 50 percent cut in the scope of the current system significantly raises asset holdings and the labor input, primarily through higher participation of older workers, and reduces the shortfall of the Social Security budget through a reduction in early claiming. Increasing the normal retirement age also raises saving and the labor supply, but the effects are smaller. Postponing the earliest retirement age has only a negligible effect. When the projected aging of the population is taken into account, the case for a reform that encourages labor force participation of the elderly appears to be much stronger

Interpreting the Hours-Technology Time-Varying Relationship

We investigate the time variation in the correlation between hours and technology shocks using a structural business cycle model. We propose an RBC model with a Constant Elasticity of Substitution (CES) production function that allows for capital- and labor-augmenting technology shocks. We estimate the model using US data with Bayesian techniques. In the full sample, we find (i) evidence in favor of a less than unitary elasticity of substitution (rejecting Cobb-Douglas) and (ii) a sizable role for capital augmenting shock for business cycles fluctuations. In rolling sub-samples, we document that the impact of technology shocks on hours worked varies over time and switches from negative to positive towards the end of the sample. We argue that this change is due to the increase in the elasticity of factor substitution. That is, labor and capital became less complementary throughout the sample inducing a change in the sign and size of the the response of hours. We conjecture that this change may have been induced by a change in the skill composition of the labor input

The Value and Risk of Human Capital

Human capital embodies the knowledge, skills, health, and values that contribute to making people productive. These qualities, however, are hard to measure, and quantitative studies of human capital are typically based on the valuation of the lifetime income that a person generates in the labor market. This article surveys the theoretical and empirical literature that models a worker's life-cycle earnings and identifies appropriate discount rates to translate those cash flows into a certainty equivalent of wealth. The chapter begins with an overview of a stylized model of human capital valuation with exogenous labor income. We then discuss extensions to this framework that study the underlying economic sources of labor income shocks, the choices, such as work, leisure, retirement, and investment in education, that people make over their life, and their implications for human capital valuation and risk

Human Capital and Long-Run Labor Income Risk

This review article examines the role of labor income risk in determining the value of a person's human capital. We draw on the existing literature to present a model that incorporates various types of shocks to earnings. Within this framework, we highlight the implications of different assumptions about the correlation between market returns and labor income growth for the value of human capital and its riskiness. Further, the article surveys other work that applies similar ideas to assess the value and risk of pension promises. Finally, we discuss how to enrich the environment with heterogeneity in preferences and stock market exposures; endogenous labor supply and retirement decisions; health shocks; and human capital investment