PUBLIC EDUCATION AND PENSIONS IN DEMOCRACY: A POLITICAL ECONOMY THEORY
构建了一个动态政治经济学模型，解释现代民主国家为何同时存在公共教育和养老金制度，核心是代际冲突驱动财政政策选择，老年人政治权力促使成年人支持公共教育以扩大未来养老金。
A dynamic political economy theory of fiscal policy is presented to explain the simultaneous existence of public education and pensions in modern democracies. The driving force of the model is the intergenerational conflict over the allocation of the public budget. Successive generations of voters choose fiscal policies through re- peated elections. The political power of elderly voters creates the motive for adults to support public investment in the human capital of future generations since it expands future pension possibilities. We characterize the Markov perfect equilibrium of the voting game in a small open economy. The equilibrium reproduces salient features of intergenerational fiscal policies in modern economies.