Ricerche Economiche最新文献

The purpose of this paper is to give an existence proof of equilibria in a two-period exchange economy with incomplete markets and transaction costs. When tradings on financial markets incur real transaction costs —interpreted as costs of enforcement of financial contracts or real taxation of financial revenues —the set of individual portfolios is bounded by the limited resources of the economy. Existence of equilibria then follows from Kakutani 's fixed point theorem.

Real money balances are held separately forconsumptionandportfolioreasons. When real balances are a state variable in the investor 's optimization problem, there is a specific inflation-hedging portfolio. An investor hedges against inflation when the effect of real money holdings on the marginal utility of wealth is negative. We show that a decrease in real balances due to inflation has two opposite effects on the marginal utility of wealth. On the one hand, the decrease in real balances reduces consumption, which in turn raises the marginal utility and decreases the marginal cost of consuming: this explains why an investor would normally hedge inflation. On the other hand, the decrease in real balances tends to increase the marginal cost of consuming. When this second effect dominates, we have the somewhat surprising result that the investor reverse-hedges inflation.

Although the relationship between inflation and financial investment decisions has long been studied, the literature has failed to recognise its importance for the crowding out issue, i.e. for whether increases in the stock of government debt reduce the equilibrium price of capital. This paper shows that when investors are concerned with real, as opposed to nominal, returns on their portfolios the conclusion of portfolio crowding out may be overturned, other things being equal, by changes in the expected rate of inflation.

This paper analyses the relationship between contributions paid and benefits received within the current old age pension scheme, evaluating the implications of reinforcing the link between individual contributions and benefits, in a framework where welfare assistance and social security are kept separate. Section 2 describes the theoretical model, adopted to examine the factors affecting the contribution-based and the earnings-related annual pension or the total pension benefits over the entire retirement period. The consequences that different levels of relevant parameters have on the ratio between the two yearly pensions are, then, analysed. Section 3 illustrates the longitudinal sample of private employees belonging to the National Institute for Social Security (INPS–FPLD), in particular of those who will retire between 1995–96 and 2001: it is used to calculate the annual earnings-related and contribution-based pension. In aceteris paribussituation, allowing for all intragenerational redistribution transfers currently provided by the pension system (through a supplement to an established minimum pension, through ceilings and reversory rights), the annual contribution-based pension appears to be in 1995 about two thirds of the annual earnings-related one. This implies that the State could currently save one third of its expenditure for new FPLD pensioners, by simply switching to a criterion of social security fairness (giving each to his own in actuarial terms) without relinquishing any of the distributive corrections currently enacted within the pension system. Through this potential reform, in the next 7 years total State savings at constant prices would reach 14 000 billion lire, or 2·2% of the stock value of pensions in the same time interval.

We discuss alternative definitions of pension liabilities and provide estimates for Italy under two of these definitions; the effects on such variables of the 1992 pension reform are considered. We also build and comment on a regional disaggregation of social security wealth (SSW): in particular we find some evidence suggesting that, as a whole, the Italian pension system has reduced the concentration of wealth among regions; if old age pensions alone are considered, this result is reversed.

We have recently suggested that net government transfers have substantially contributed to the decline of the aggregate Italian saving rate. Changes in social security laws and regulations which took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s apparently weakened the link between contributions and benefits permitting a time path of aggregate consumption in excess of what would have occurred in the absence of such changes. In this paper, these results are revised and extended and, if anything, strengthened: slightly less than half the reduction in the private “equilibrium” saving rate observed over the last 30 years appears to be due to the increase of social security wealth. The paper also assesses the likely impact of the 1992 social security reform and suggests that in the long run the impact might be sizeable accounting for up to a 3 points higher saving ratio.

Under uncertain rates of growth of the economy and real yields, portfolio theory predicts an optimal pension arrangement consisting of pay-as-you-go (PG) and funded pension schemes. The paper explains the almost exclusive PG character of Italian households» pension wealth on the basis of its past returns, higher and less uncertain than financial yields. Recent reforms have created the conditions for pension portfolio diversification, but the transition is hampered by the difficulty in lowering the high contribution rates needed to honour past promises. The prospects of pension funds in Italy are assessed under different hypotheses, showing that many decades will be necessary to build up a substantial funded pension wealth.

The main Italian Social Security Scheme (the Pension Fund for Private Employees) is considered, and the real rate of return offered to cohorts retiring at 10-year intervals between 1960 and 2020 is calculated. This rate decreases from more than 9% for the 1960 cohort to roughly 2·50% for the 2020 one. While in the past, higher rates could be sustained thanks to an increasing payroll tax, the present system is unbalanced and—apart from possible minor further rate increases—needs either budget support or a cut in benefits. Turning to within-generations flows, the main features of the scheme, as of the 1970–90 period, are examined: a “floor” and a “ceiling”, earnings based benefits, seniority pensions. While the last two workagainstequity, the first two are meant to redistribute from rich to poor, but they have been devised too roughly to be effective. A reform enacted in 1992 by the Amato Government corrected some of these shortcomings, but a new reform is needed and expected.