A social security fallacy

The article investigates whether compulsory old age provisions are justified from an economic point of view. According to a standard argument, some people would not provide sufficiently for their old age in the absence of a compulsory pension system — they would become a charge to the public. This free rider problem can be solved by mandatory lump sum contributions. However, if contributions depend on labour income, as they do in reality, potential free riders consider them as payroll taxes — even if the pension system is fully funded and actuarially fair. Therefore, compulsory contributions which are related to earned income do not solve an economic problem which cannot be tackled by the tax system as well. Put differently, there exists no economic justification for compulsory contributions, the standard argument is simply false.     

有关社会保障的几个问题

社会保障是政府举办的，旨在向那些因遇到生、老、病、残、失业等经济事故而可能在经济上面临困难的社会成员提供的基本经济保障。它是由政府发起和实施的一种经济保障。它包含三层含义：也就是由谁来办、为谁办、怎么办的问题。     

The future of social security

We analyze the effect of the projected demographic transition on the political support for social security, and equilibrium outcomes. Embedding a probabilistic-voting setup of electoral competition in the standard OLG model with capital accumulation, we find that intergenerational transfers arise in the absence of altruism, commitment, or trigger strategies. Closed-form solutions predict population ageing to lead to higher social security tax rates, a rising share of pensions in GDP, but eventually lower social security benefits per retiree. The response of equilibrium tax rates to demographic shocks reduces old-age consumption risk. Calibrated to match features of the U.S. economy, the model suggests that, in response to the projected demographic transition, social security tax rates will gradually increase to 16%. Other policies that distort labor supply will become less important; labor supply therefore will rise, in contrast with frequently voiced fears.     

Capital tax competition and social security

The classic capital tax policy externality is studied in the presence of a social security program where both the benefits and taxes depend on wages in an overlapping generations economy with many countries and mobile capital. We study the response and welfare implications of a coordinated capital tax rate increase across countries competing for the mobile tax base on the initial generations, the transition, and the steady state. The tax increase is initially completely capitalized, but some of the burden is shifted to labor on the transition path and in the steady state. Several new welfare effects are uncovered including an effect involving the parameters of the social security program. Sufficient conditions are provided so that all current and future generations are better off from the reform. However, social security may reduce the gain to capital tax reform.     

Limited computational ability and social security

We revisit the role of social security in countering inadequate saving for retirement. We compute the optimal social security tax rate for households who lack the computational ability to solve dynamic optimization problems. Instead, they follow the simple rule of thumb of consuming and saving a fixed fraction of disposable income. This departs from the tradition of computing the optimal tax rate when households suffer from some type of behavioral bias yet possess the ability to solve dynamic optimization problems. Our general equilibrium model is calibrated to the moments of the distribution of saving rates in the US, and our results are generally supportive of a social security program as large as the one in the US.     

中国企业职工基本养老保险名义账户制度研究

针对我国企业职工基本养老保险个人账户制度发生异化的现状,本文提出了变堵为疏的思路,认为有必要进行参量改革,实行名义账户制。从三个维度对典型名义账户制养老金计划进行了描述,构建了典型名义账户制养老金计划的均衡模型,既应用瑞典的经验证明了均衡模型的科学合理性,又应用均衡模型对名义账户制养老金计划在我国的可行性进行了实证分析。     

任志强：我看保障性住房

摘自任志强博客 保障性住房与商品房所供给的群体完全不同,保障性住房的供应对象是那些城市低收入住房困难的家庭,这部分家庭本来也无力进入商品房市场,因此保障性住房的建设不会冲击商品房楼市,这不但是住房和城乡建设部副部长齐骥的观点,也是政策制定者的初衷。     

完善社保体系已箭在弦上

完善社会保障制度对现阶段中国经济平稳运行起到极为关键的作用。社会保障制度通过对国民收入的再分配,调整国民经济运行的结构从而调节总供给与总需求的平衡,是国民经济运行可调节的"稳定器"中国经济下行趋势明显,从2010年G D P同比增长10.4%,经历四年时间下滑四个百分点至2014年的7.4%,新一代中央决策层以"新常态"定义当下的经济发展阶段,完善社会保障制度在"新常态"下更要有新作为。当前,中国已经迈入了全民保障时代。据国家有关部门的统计,2014年底,参加基本养老的人数达到8.37亿;参加城镇基本医保的人数达到     

Gender implications of current social security reforms

This paper examines some current reforms to social security benefits / tax credits and changes to employment provisions from a gender perspective. It analyses tensions between the trend towards ‘individualisation’ and growing emphasis on the couple/household as a policy focus. New tax credits change the distribution of resources within many couples. Incentives to work for some second earners should improve; but extending in‐work subsidies to childless couples raises questions. Payment of child tax credit to the ‘main carer’ has been welcomed, though the implications of joint ownership of tax credits are unclear, and joint assessment will be extended. Many claimants' partners can now access employment services. However, this is aimed at reducing the number of workless households rather than expanding individuals' opportunities. Joint claims for jobseeker's allowance, and work‐focused interviews, involve increased responsibilities for partners but no right of access to individual income. A more consistent critical analysis of reform from a gender perspective is required.     

Global demographic trends and social security reform

How sustainable are the current social security systems in the developed economies, given the projected demographic trends? The most recent literature has answered this question through dynamic general-equilibrium models in a closed-economy framework. This paper provides a new quantitative benchmark of analysis for this question represented by a two-region model (South and North) of the world economy where capital flows across regions. The timing and the extent of the demographic transition—and the associated economic forces shaping capital accumulation and equilibrium factor prices—are very different in the two regions. Thus, the projected paths of interest rate and wage rate in the North diverge substantially between closed and open economy. We perform a wide range of policy experiments under both scenarios. Our main conclusion is that if one is interested in quantifying the path of the fiscal variables (e.g., the value of the payroll tax) needed to keep the social security system viable or to finance a transition towards a fully funded system, then these two benchmarks yield similar results. However, if the focus is on quantifying the path of factor prices, aggregate variables and, ultimately, welfare, then the two approaches can diverge significantly.     

Mitigating America's demographic dilemma by pre-funding social security

Financing Social Security benefits at current levels implies significant increases in payroll taxes within the next 20 years under current US demographic developments. Using a general-equilibrium overlapping-generations model with realistic patterns of fertility and lifespan extension, this study shows that future generations would be harmed during the demographic transition due to rising payroll taxes, which crowd out savings and slow real wage growth below the rate of technological progress. A faster rate of technological progress would mitigate only some of the payroll tax increase and its economic consequences but could not overcome them. Addressing the financing problem by reducing Social Security benefits as needed or by raising the eligibility age for benefits imposes major welfare losses on current or near term retirees. By contrast, a pre-funding of Social Security financed with consumption taxes more evenly spreads the welfare losses across generations, and it helps future generations, especially the poor, by stimulating capital formation.     

Quantifying the risk-sharing welfare gains of social security

The welfare effects of intergenerational risk sharing through a pay-as-you-go social security system that is efficiently indexed to wages or interest rates are quantified. Comparing steady states, there are large welfare gains of being born into an economy with efficient risk sharing as compared to the current U.S. system. Efficient policy involves an increasingly risky net of tax income over the life cycle. When adjustment to steady state is taken into account, the welfare gains largely turn negative. The results are also compared and contrasted to the first best allocation.     

牡丹社保IC卡在CITE系统中的应用

IC卡(Integrated Circuit Card)译为集成电路(芯片)卡，即卡片内包含一块集成电路(芯片)。从集成电路的运算能力看，IC卡可分为Memory卡和CPU卡两大类。按照《中国金融集成电路(IC)卡规范》的要求，金融IC卡必须使用CPU卡。     

对现行农村社会保障制度的几点思考

农村社会保障体系是我国社会保障体系的重要组成部分，也是薄弱环节，建立和完善农村社会保障体系是全面建设小康社会和建设和谐社会的重要内容。虽然改革开放以来，我国农村经济得到了较大发展，但农村社会保障制度却严重滞后，尤其是随着改革的深入，城乡差距逐步扩大。因此，为了解决我国的“三农问题”，统筹城乡经济社会全面协调发展，增加农民收入，实现全面建设小康社会目标，必须加快完善我国农村社会保障制度的步伐。     

美国财政社会保障支出公平性分析及启示

本文以2000-2011年美国财政社会保障支出数据为基础,采用基尼系数、集中指数等分析工具对美国各州政府间财政社会保障支出的公平性、美国联邦和州政府间财政社会保障支出的合理性等问题进行了分析,最终得出了美国财政社会保障支出总体公平性较高的结论。在此基础上,对我国社会保障制度发展提出了扩大中央财政在财政社会保障支出中所占比重、合理划分各级政府的社会保障财权和事权、规范转移支付形式等建议。     

Simulating alternative social security responses to the demographic transition

"This paper uses a perfect foresight life cycle simulation model to examine the dynamic economic effects of baby 'booms' and baby 'busts' as well as the interaction of such demographic changes with social security policy. Demographic change can have sizeable short and long-run effects on saving rates and factors returns." The geographic focus is on the United States. "The model predicts long-run improvement in welfare associated with a prolonged baby bust. This improvement holds even in the absence of accommodating social security policy. It reflects a long-run decline in the dependency ratio, with the reduction in dependent children per worker more than offsetting the increase in retirees per worker."     

The effect of pension accounting on corporate pension asset allocation

We examine the impact of new pension disclosures and subsequent full pension recognition under FRS 17 and IAS 19 in the United Kingdom and SFAS 158 in the United States on pension asset allocation. These standards require recognition of net pension surplus/deficit on the balance sheet and actuarial gains/losses in other comprehensive income. Therefore, these standards introduce volatility into comprehensive income and balance sheets. We identify a disclosure period during which UK companies disclosed all the required data under FRS 17 in the notes without recognition. We also identify a full recognition period starting 1 year before until 1 year after the adoption of FRS 17/IAS 19 (UK) and SFAS 158 (US). We predict and find that UK companies, on average, shifted pension assets from equity to debt securities during both the disclosure and the full recognition periods. We also find that while before the adoption of SFAS 158 US companies maintained a stable allocation to equities and bonds, these companies, on average, shifted funds from equities to bonds around the adoption of SFAS 158. Cross-sectional analysis shows that the shift away from equities is related to changes in funding levels, shorter investment horizons, increased financial leverage, and the expected impact of the new standards on shareholders’ equity.     

Short horizons, time inconsistency, and optimal social security

We study the optimal provision of social security in a dynamically efficient economy using a continuous-time overlapping-generations model in which consumers have short planning horizons. The short-horizon mechanism leads to dynamic optimization that is time-inconsistent over the life cycle. Our calibrated general-equilibrium results are generally supportive of social security for a wide array of social welfare functions. Thus, the basic life-cycle model can be augmented with only this slight twist in order to rationalize a social security program with the current U.S. tax rate.     

Developments in pension reform: the case of Dutch stand-alone collective pension schemes

Corporate defined-benefit plans suffer from a number of serious weaknesses, including credit risk of the sponsor, ambiguous ownership of the surplus and back-loading of benefits. Also defined-contribution plans feature drawbacks. Individuals are not well equipped to make the complex financial decisions involved, transaction costs are substantial and various risks are not managed properly over the life cycle. Stand-alone collective pension schemes offer an attractive third way between corporate defined-benefit schemes and individual defined-contribution schemes. The members of the fund are the risk bearers and the funds manage risk aimed at providing an adequate income level during retirement at low costs. Dutch pension funds are evolving into such stand-alone pension schemes. Some directions for future reforms are sketched.