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P Pestieau

Publications and source records attributed to P Pestieau.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

Bequests as a heir "disciple device.".

"This paper develops a model of inter vivos gifts and bequests in a setting of moral hazard and adverse selection. Altruistic parents do not perfectly know how much effort their children make to earn their living, nor do they know their true level of ability. Inter vivos gifts take place prior to the realization of the children's earnings whereas at the moment of bequests, parents do observe them. We show that an optimal transfer policy generally uses a mix of inter vivos gifts--deemed as more efficient--and bequests--deemed as more redistributive."

Economics↗

Population growth and optimality: when does serendipity hold?

"This note gives the conditions under which there is an interior optimum rate of population growth in a two-generations-overlapping model. These conditions imply complementarity both in production and in consumption. They also validate Samuelson's serendipity theorem."

Demography↗

Inheritance and wealth composition.

"This paper studies the effects of variables pertaining to alternative bequest motives on the composition of households' portfolio. It relies on a 1986 survey on the assets structure of 5,600 French households. The main conclusion is that bequest motives indeed influence the composition of households' wealth.... In general, however, for lack of data but also because households have mixed bequest motives, one cannot establish a clear relation between specific models of inheritance on the one hand and wealth pattern on the other hand."

Developed Countries↗

Pay-as-you-go social security in a changing environment.

"In this paper, we examine the optimal pay-as-you-go social security scheme which reallocates resources across generations in a changing environment, that is, with fluctuations in population growth rates and in productivity levels. We use an overlapping generations model along with a social welfare function consisting of the sum of generational utilities either unweighted or weighted by population size and a discount factor. We show how intergenerational resource sharing can be used to improve social welfare even though the extent of intergenerational redistribution is hampered by payroll tax deadweight losses...." The authors also consider the effects of an economy's openness on resource sharing. The geographical focus is on developed countries.

Demography↗

The demographics of inequality.

"This paper presents a survey of recent literature on the effects of demographic variables on economic inequality. First, a number of conceptual and methodological questions are raised and discussed. They pertain to what is meant by inequality, what the range of demographic variables is, and how variable and endogenous are the demographic variables most widely used. The paper then turns to a review of empirical works on the distributive incidence of the following demographic variables: baby boomers entering the job market, aging population, variable fertility and mortality rates, internal and external migrations, divorce and widowhood, and finally donations and bequests. It appears that a lot of caution is needed when assessing the incidence of any demographic variable changing the size of the population because in this case standard inequality measures yield conflicting signals." The geographical focus is on developed countries.

Birth Rate↗