Search Publications

Center for
Retirement Research
at Boston College
Hovey House
140 Commonwealth
Chestnut Hill
MA 02467-3808

617-552-1762 TEL
617-552-0191 FAX
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Web accessibility

 

Tags:
Click to add your tags...,

Social Security Investment In Equities I: Linear Case

Print
by Peter Diamond and John Geanakoplos

WP#1999-2  

Introduction 

Among the elderly, Social Security income is distributed very differently than private pension and asset income. For the bottom quintile of the income distribution, 81 percent of income comes from Social Security, while only 6 percent is from pensions plus income from assets. For the top quintile, 23 percent comes from Social Security, while 46 percent is from pensions and assets - dramatically different percentages. Similarly, there are great differences in saving and investing among current workers. Among all those who were paying social security taxes in 1995, fully 59% held no stock, either directly or through pension plans. Even among those between 45 and 54 years of age, 50% held no stock, directly or indirectly. These differences have important implications for the proposal to invest part of Social Security trust fund reserves in private securities.

For full paper in PDF

This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it is an Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it is the James Tobin Professor of Economics and the Director of the Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics at Yale University. The authors are grateful to Saku Aura for research assistance, to Alicia Munnell, Jim Poterba and Antonio Rangel for comments, and to the National Science Foundation for research support under grant SBR-9618698. The research reported herein was performed pursuant to a grant from the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) funded as part of the Retirement Research Consortium. The opinions and conclusions are solely those of the authors and should not be construed as representing the opinions or policy of SSA or any agency of the Federal Government or the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.
Tags: Social Security, Working Papers,
Click to add your tags...,