Consider a model where an individual lives in two periods. The individual has diminishing marginal utility of consumption and receives $20,000 in period 1 and an income of $8,000 in period 2. The private interest rate is 10 percent per period, and the person can lend or borrow money at this rate. Assume also that the person intends to consume all of his income over his lifetime (that is, he won't leave any money for his heirs). Draw the appropriate graph and answer the following (you can choose to draw one graph to show everything):
a. If there is no public pension program, what is the individual's optimal consumption in period 2 if period 1's optimal consumption is $13,000?
b. Now assume there is a public pension program that takes $2,000 from the individual in the first period and pays him the amount with interest in the second period. What is the impact of this system on the person's saving (i.e., private saving)? Assume now that the public pension has a lower rate of return (5 percent) than the private return (10 percent). How would the introduction of this public pension system affect the budget constraint? What do you expect the amount the individual saves privately to be? What would be the amount of saving he needs to do to ensure he enjoys the same amount of optimal consumption in period 2 from question (a)?