Search

This paper makes a theoretical contribution by providing clear and detailed derivation of economic agents’ decision problems including elastic labor supply in Gertler’s overlapping generation (OLG) model. We apply the model to the Korean economy by calibration based on Korean economic data. It also analyzes the impact of current social issues such as aging and extension of retirement age, on the Korean economy in a long-run equilibrium. Subsequently, we also discuss the implications of the analysis. Aging has prolonged the period of retirement; therefore, population structure changes by the increase in the proportion of retirees, the total consumption-to- GDP ratio decreases, and capital stock increases due to reduced propensity to consume out of wealth in preparation for an individual’s retirement life. The implementation of retirement age extension increases the proportion of retirees relatively less and alleviates fluctuations in labor supply and the share of financial assets for both economic agents. However, the decrements in consumption-to-GDP ratio is larger than before, and this leads to a larger rise in the capital stock compared to when there is only an aging effect.

We suggest an overlapping generations model incorporating the risk-adjusted valuation in a worker’s decision problem. The risk-adjusted probabilities allow risk-averse workers to place more weight on cash flows upon retirement when assessing lifetime income at present value. The risk-adjusted valuation is consistently applied to any non-financial asset, allowing them to be evaluated collectively or separately. We predict capital returns under demographic structure, consumption preference, and social security policy changes.

We suggest a risk-adjusted valuation approach for workers at retirement risk to make decisions in an overlapping generations economy. The risk-averse workers use greater weights than expected, so-called risk-adjusted probability, on their retirement cash flows to assess the residual lifetime income. This method can be consistently applied to value financial and non-financial assets, and on the risk-adjusted valuations, the workers will make optimal investments. To predict capital returns and economic variables, comparative statics will be numerically implemented via demographic structure, preference, and social security policy by aggregating workers’ decisions.