Financing Retirement in the European Union

This paper explores how EU countries can address various challenges (including the aging of the population) affecting their systems of old-age income support. It presents two scenarios illustrating the most important uncertainties surrounding the major developments that affect the pension systems of the EU. To diversify these risks, EU governments should act on several fronts. In addition to the formation of human capital (especially that of children), employment (especially that of older workers) should be boosted. This calls for social insurance reform with more emphasis on individual saving schemes. Pension schemes should be more explicit about how they share demographic and other risks. Countries that currently rely heavily on public pay-as-you-go (PAYG) schemes should stimulate private pensions by gradually reducing PAYG benefits collected by high-income earners, by issuing new financial instruments, and by conducting intergenerational risk sharing through the tax system.     

Theorie und Empirie steigender Lebenserwartung, Nachreservierung und „Umverteilung“ in der privaten Rentenversicherung

An unexpected increase in life expectancy has implications for private pensions (annuities). These can be offset by reducing pension payments, cross-subsidization of the pension payments, risk-taking of insurance companies or combining these policies. An empirical study of the German market for annuities shows that most of the companies under investigation dealt with the problem of an unexpected increase of life expectation in the 90ies by significant cross-subsidization of the pension payments from young policy holders. This paper discusses the implications such policies can have when the importance of private pensions increases in the future.     

论社会保障

在对美国社会保障制度改革的政策建议中,彼得·戴蒙德教授主张通过养老金相关参数的调整来适应未来养老基金支出增长的压力,方式是改善养老金待遇标准和税收规则以确保养老基金的精算平衡。其基本观点是:第一,社会保障是退休后收入的基础,是防止贫困和失去保险机会的保障,所以社会保障制度应该建立;第二,因为人们很少自愿进行养老金积累,年金化的强制性公共养老金就非常重要,一是能平衡终生收入,二是能够提供就业激励;第三,公共养老金计划对工人及其家庭,特别是儿童、配偶和遗属有重要保障作用;第四,延迟退休能提高未来的消费,设计合理的待遇累进原则和退休审查制度会有助于增加劳动激励;第五,养老金的代际转移是一种再分配,较多的再分配会对工作生涯形成激励;第六,为实现精算平衡,应引入自动平衡机制来自动调整税率和待遇水平,以减少立法的压力。     

风险分散与中国混合型基本养老保险制度改革研究

本文从参保人养老投资风险分散角度研究混合型基本养老保险制度设计。通过构建一个两期消费模型,综合考虑参保人所面临的人口结构、工资增长率、养老基金投资等风险因素,本文研究了混合型基本养老保险制度中现收现付制与基金积累制的最优比例,并利用中国数据进行了测算与敏感性分析。研究发现:引入小规模个人账户基金积累制可以分散人口老龄化给现收现付制所带来的风险,中国实行混合型基本养老保险制度有其合理性;但如果要维持40%～45%的养老金替代率水平,中国基本养老保险制度的财务可持续性会面临较大挑战。     

Economic Capabilities,Choices and Outcomes at Older Ages*

Intense policy and academic interest in the ‘economics of ageing’ has come about as a result of the demographic trends that have been experienced over the last 50 years and that are projected for the next 50 years. Key economic policy issues relate to the design of public pensions, welfare systems, healthcare and invalidity benefits, and the regulation of private pensions and other retirement saving. This paper presents an overview of the beginnings of a research agenda targeted towards increasing the empirical evidence on these issues in England and providing extensive data for subsequent research. The paper focuses on summarising some recent data on how individuals' economic circumstances, and in particular the ability and willingness to work, change from age 50 onwards. This will be a key factor in determining the ability of economic institutions to adjust to new socio‐demographic equilibria in which individuals are living for longer. Further issues for more extensive empirical research are also identified.     

德国里斯特养老保险计划及其对我国的启示

德国里斯特养老保险计划与我国企业年金几乎同时起步发展,两者都定位于第二层次的补充养老保险,但就目前的发展状况而言却是天壤之别。论文探讨了德国里斯特养老保险计划的规划思路、设计理念、发展特点及其对我国补充养老保险市场的借鉴与启示。文章指出具有补贴性质的类似于德国里斯特养老保险计划的个人储蓄养老保险是撬动我国补充养老保险市场发展的新思路,是推动我国补充养老保险发展壮大的新动力。     

Supplementary Pension Coverage in Britain

The 1986 Social Security Act introduced far-reaching changes to the supplementary pension environment in Britain, encouraging the growth of defined contribution pension plans and especially personal pensions. This paper examines the pattern of supplementary pension coverage of employees in Britain five years after the implementation of the Act, using cross-sectional data from the Family Resources Survey 1993–94. Two-thirds of employees in Britain are covered by private contracted-out pension scheme. Employer-provided defined benefit pension schemes remain the dominant type of supplementary pension scheme. The growth of personal pension plans is more marked among manual, less-skilled, workers in smaller establishments. The paper concludes that, in the absence of further pension reform, adverse labour market conditions will exert downward pressure on private pension coverage. JEL classification:I38, J32, J38.     

公务员养老金制度并轨改革的设计思路与精算评估

我国公务员与企业职工的退休待遇存在巨大差距,养老保险制度的公平性备受质疑,由制度差异带来的阻碍人才流动等弊端日益凸显,已成为近年来社会关注的焦点问题,本文在分析公务员的职业特点及其养老保障特殊性的基础上,借鉴国际经验,并基于融入全国统一的养老金体系和保护公务员既得权益的考虑,给出了公务员养老金改革应采取“基本养老金＋职业年金”的设计思路和具体方案,测算分析了改革方案对个人和财政支出的影响以及在实施上的可行性。     

The new joint pension scheme established by collective agreement between the Norwegian employers' confederation and the Norwegian federation of trade unions

Abstract

Norway has a statutory old age pension scheme covering the whole population over 70 years of age. Since 1959, pensions are granted without a means test. As from 1 April 1962, the annual pension amounts are 3348 crowns for a single person and 5028 crowns for a married couple. For special groups, such as seamen, fishermen and forestry workers, additional pension schemes have been established by law. Many private companies, especially the larger firms, have established staff pension schemes on a voluntary basis, either in the form of actuarial pension funds, or through collective pension insurance. Many of these schemes cover only staff employees, not workers. In other cases both groups are covered, but with relatively higher benefits for staff than for workers.     

A Note on the Tax Treatment of Private Pensions and Individual Savings Accounts

The UK government is planning to introduce stakeholder pensions from April 2001 as an alternative to existing personal pensions for people on moderate earnings. But stakeholder pensions are only one way to save for retirement; the new tax‐free Individual Savings Account (ISA) is another. This note compares the tax treatments of pensions and ISAs and assesses the conditions under which the tax treatment of private pensions is more generous than that of an ISA to a basicrate taxpayer – the typical target for stakeholder pensions. The abolition of dividend tax credits paid to pension funds in July 1997 reduced the relatively tax‐favoured position of pensions, but the tax‐free lump sum means that private pensions continue to be a tax‐favoured form of saving at most reasonable rates of return. We show that employer contributions to private pensions are particularly tax‐favoured.     

The Displacement Effect of Public Pensions on the Accumulation of Financial Assets*

The generosity of public pensions may depress private savings and provide incentives to retire early. While there is plenty of evidence supporting the latter effect, there remains considerable controversy over whether public pensions crowd out private savings. This paper uses international micro‐data sets collected over recent years to investigate whether public pensions displace private savings. The identification strategy relies not only on cross‐country differences in generosity but also on differences in the progressivity or non‐linearity of pension formulas across countries. We estimate that an extra dollar of pension wealth depresses accumulated financial assets around the time of retirement by 22 cents. An extra 10,000 dollars in public pension wealth reduces the average retirement age by roughly one month, which implies an elasticity of years of retirement with respect to pension wealth of 0.15.     

Pensions and poverty traps: Is saving worthwhile for women?

Present policy means that a private pension, unless it is substantial, may fail to bring financial gain in retirement due to means testing: the pensions poverty trap. This paper examines women's acquisition of private (occupational and personal) pensions and their risk of facing this trap. Because of the loosening link between marriage and motherhood, previous patterns of pension advantage according to marital status are shifting. The employment and pension impact of motherhood varies with socio-economic status but the pension prospects of the majority of women are poor. It is concluded that women's need for financial advice to avoid the pensions poverty trap is greater than men's. An improved basic pension, indexed to national income, would reduce the risk of mis-selling and restore confidence that saving for a pension is worthwhile.     

拉丁美洲养老保险改革及其对中国的启示

自20世纪80年代起拉丁美洲国家对养老保险制度进行改革,将养老保险由国家公共管理改革为私有化运营或多种模式并存的方式。拉丁美洲国家作为发展中国家,其背景、社会条件和经济实力与中国类似,可以作为中国养老保险改革的参照样板;其多样化的改革方式及复杂的改革背景可以作为实践案例对中国的养老保险改革提供参考,对中国正在进行的养老保险改革和新模式创立提供借鉴。本文从国际化的视角选取拉美国家进行案例研究,通过比较分析其各自改革的手段和效果,结合中国的实际情况进行分析借鉴;尤其针对在加速城市化背景下中国长期二元社会突显的大批城乡移民养老保险问题,根据拉美私营化改革结果,借鉴吸收其经验教训,创新性提出中国城乡移民养老保险多元化的经营模式。     

Credible Pensions*

One of the main problems in pension policy is to develop an institutional framework that guarantees that public and private pensions promises are kept. This paper discusses how the governance of public and private pensions is key to making such promises credible. It argues that credibility concerns undermine the case for earnings‐related pensions run by the state and private defined benefit plans.     

Pension Funding,Share Prices,and National Savings

This paper examines empirically the effect of unfunded pension obligations on corporate share prices and discusses the implications of these estimates for national saving, the decline of the stock market in recent years, and the rationality of corporate financial behavior. The analysis uses the information on inflation-adjusted income and assets which large firms were required to provide for 1976 and subsequent years. The evidence for a sample of nearly 200 manufacturing firms is consistent with the conclusion that share prices fully reflect the value of unfunded pension obligations. Since the conventional accounting measure of the unfunded pension liability has a number of problems (which we examine in the paper), it would be more accurate to say that the data are consistent with the conclusion that shareholders accept the conventional measure as the best available information and reduce share prices by a corresponding amount. The most important implication of the share price response is that the existence of unfunded private pension liabilities does not necessarily entail a reduction in total private saving. Because the pension liability reduces the equity value of the firm, shareholders are given notice of its existence and an incentive to save more themselves. For this reason, unfunded private pensions differ fundamentally from the unfunded Social Security pension and the other unfunded federal government civilian and military pensions.     

英国职业养老金发展动态及启示

本文介绍了英国职业养老金的基本情况。在老龄化等影响下,英国公共部门和私有部门职业养老金分别出现了严重危机。近年英国政府全面加强了职业养老金改革,包括实施养老金个人账户制,调整公共部门养老金政策,提出加强工作养老金的设想等。这些政策的核心是如何设计一种更有效率,但同时保障了人们养老需求的市场化私有养老金模式。英国职业养老金的发展的经验教训,对我国完善养老金制度有积极启示意义。     

Public and Private Pension Spending: Principles,Practice and the Need for Reform

This paper surveys the issue of public spending on pensions. Drawing on evidence from systems around the world, but particularly in Britain, we outline the arguments for different types of public and private provision of pension income and consider how far they go towards meeting the objectives of pension provision. We discuss past trends in spending and look at future projections.     

Political-economy of pension plans: Impact of institutions,gender, and culture

National pension systems are an important part of financial intermediation and worker welfare in most countries, but how and why do they differ internationally? Controlling for important political, economic and social institutions, we document that international differences in pension progressivity, or how pensions reflect lifetime earnings, are negatively related to masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, long-term orientation, employment rights, average pension levels, social trust and economic inequality. We also find that pension progressivity is positively related to the economic and societal role of women, the extent of Catholicism; as well as political voice and accountability. These results provide important insights for both public policy and MNC managers.     

Compulsory Savings: Efficiency and Redistribution On the Interaction of Means Tested Basic Income and Public Pensions

In the presence of means tested basic income for old age, households will tend to reduce precautionary savings to an inefficiently low level. We explore how this might serve as a justification for a compulsory public pension system. In a representative agent framework with two income types, compulsory savings are found to be Pareto-improving up to a point. Beyond that point, increases in contribution rates simply result in increasingly regressive (implicit) taxation. Similar results are found for pay-as-you-go pensions. On the basis of our model we argue that the introduction of a funded pension component may help the German pension system to cope with demographic change more efficiently.     

机关事业单位养老保险制度改革探索——以江苏省连云港市为例

机关事业单位养老保险制度,作为整个养老保险制度的重要组成部分,其改革的重要性、必要性和紧迫性毋庸置疑。结合江苏省连云港市机关事业单位养老保险制度的改革现状、存在问题及其原因分析,针对性地提出进一步推进机关事业单位养老保险制度改革的对策建议:扩大基本养老保险覆盖范围,提高基金统筹层次;设计公平的基本养老金计发办法,建立基本养老金调整机制;建立基本养老保险个人账户,完善养老保险管理体制;制定统一的机关事业单位养老保险政策,构建多层次的养老保险体系。