Time preference, international migration, and social security

This paper analyzes both the formation of long-run migration incentives and the consequences of a regime change from “autarky” to “free migration” in an overlapping-generations framework with two countries. Under autarky the countries may differ with respect to their aggregate savings rate or with respect to their pension-wage ratio. It is shown that an individual prefers to live in a country where the capital-labor ratio is close to the Golden Rule level and where his characteristics are relatively scarce. Both the migration incentives and the consequences of free migration are determined by these two effects. Received: 2 March 1998/Accepted: 10 February 1999