Kent Smetters Faculty Profile

Kent Smetters
Boettner Associate Professor; Associate Professor of Insurance and Risk Management

PhD, Harvard University, 1995; MA, Harvard University, 1992; BS, Ohio State University, 1990

Research Areas
Social insurance programs; incomplete markets; annuity markets; tax reform; pricing government guarantees

Academic Positions Held
Wharton: 1998-present. Visiting appointment: Stanford University

Other Positions
Economist, Congressional Budget Office, 1995-98; Faculty Research Fellow, Aging Program, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2000-present; Research Associate, Public Economics, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2001-present; Deputy Assistant Secretary of Economic Policy, US Treasury: 2001-2002; Member, Blue Ribbon Advisory Panel on Dynamic Scoring, U.S. Congress (JCT), 2002-present; Member, National Academy of Social Insurance, 2002-present; Research Associate, Michigan Retirement Research Center, 2000-present

Career and Recent Professional Awards; Teaching Awards
Fellowship, National Science Foundation, 1990-93; TIAA-CREF Paul A. Samuelson, Certificate of Excellence, 2002; Robert C. Witt Award for the best paper published in the Journal of Risk and Insurance, 2000

Representative Publications
(with S. Nishiyama)
“Does Privatizing Social Security Increase Efficiency?” Quarterly Journal of Economics (Forthcoming).

(with J. Walliser and L. Kotlikoff)
“Finding a Way Out of America’s Demographic Dilemma.” Journal of Monetary Economics (Forthcoming).

“Sharing Financial Risks across Non-Trading Generations: A Decentralized Alternative to Government Ownership of Private Equities” Journal of Monetary Economics 53(7),(2006).

(with S. Nishiyama)
“Consumption Taxes, Risk Sharing and Economic Efficiency.” Journal of Political Economy 113(5): 1088 – 1115 (October 2005).

(with J. Walliser)
"Opting Out of Social Security." Journal of Public Economics 88: 1295-1306(2004).

“The Dynamic Properties of the Neoclassical Growth Model with CES Production.” Review of Economic Dynamics 6,3: 697-707 (2003).

(with D. Altig, A. Auerbach, L. Kotlikoff, and J. Walliser)
"Simulating Fundamental Tax Reform in the U.S." American Economic Review 91.3: 574-595 (June, 2001).

(with L. Kotlikoff and J. Walliser)
"Privatizing Social Security in the U.S. ­— Comparing the Options." Review of Economic Dynamics 2: 532-574 (1999).

"Ricardian Equivalence: Long-Run Leviathan." Journal of Public Economics 73: 395-421 (1999).