Aspen Gorry

Optimal taxation over the life cycle

We derive the optimal income tax schedule for a life cycle labor supply model in which productivity varies exogenously and deterministically. Individuals choose whether and how much to work at each date. The government must finance a given expenditure and does not have access to lump sum taxation. We solve the model using an implementability constraint as in Lucas and Stokey (1983). The average tax rate determines when an individual will work while the marginal tax rate determines how much she will work. In this framework, the optimal tax schedule is progressive (the average tax rate is increasing) at low levels of income, even in the absence of redistributive concerns. Moreover, in contrast to the optimal taxation literature following Mirrlees (1971), the marginal tax rate at the top is strictly positive.

Learning and Life Cycle Patterns of Occupational Transitions

Data reveal that individuals experience a high number of occupational switches. Over 40% of high school graduates transition between white and blue collar occupations more than once between the ages of 18 and 28. This paper develops a life cycle model of occupational choices based on workers learning about their type and sorting themselves to the best job match. Documenting life cycle patterns of occupational choices using data from the NLSY79 supports key predictions from the model. Initial characteristics are predictive of future patterns of occupational switching, including the timing and number of switches. In addition, the average time to the first occupational switch is longer than the time to the second switch for individuals with multiple occupational transitions.

A NOTE ON THE NONLINEAR EFFECT OF MINIMUM WAGE INCREASES

We use a labor search model with worker experience to assess the effects of minimum wage increases. Minimum wages can have nonlinear effects on unemployment as higher minimum wages become binding for larger portions of the underlying productivity distribution. The model is used to assess the increases proposed by the Obama Administration from

Social Security and Saving: An Update

7.25 an hour to

Minimum Wages and Youth Unemployment

9.00 and then to

Experience and worker flows

10.10 per hour. We find that minimum wage increases have large effects on youth unemployment. These large effects cast doubt on using past empirical estimates of the effects of minimum wages that do not account for potential nonlinearities.

Time and State Dependence in an Ss Decision Experiment

Typical neoclassical life-cycle models predict that Social Security has a large and negative effect on private savings. We review this theoretical literature by constructing a model where individuals face uninsurable longevity risk and differ by wage earnings, while Social Security provides benefits as a life annuity with higher replacement rates for the poor. We use the model to generate numerical examples that confirm the standard result. Using several benefit and tax changes from the 1970s and 1980s as natural experiments, we investigate the empirical relationship between Social Security and private savings and find little evidence to support the predictions from the theoretical model. We explore possible reasons for the lack of strong empirical findings.