Social Security and personal saving: 1971 and beyond

Feldstein (1996, 1974) reported that Social Security in the U.S.A. reduced personal saving (“saving”) in 1992 (1971) by $416 ($61) billion. I reestimate his life-cycle consumption specification using data from the latest NIPA revision, correct his calculations, and find that the implied reduction in 1992 (1971) saving is now $280 ($22) billion, 48% (16%) of actual net private saving, with a standard error of $114 ($14) billion. If structural breaks around WWII and the 1972 Social Security amendments (which raised real per capita SSW by 22%) are allowed, and the market value of Treasury debt included in the specification, the reduction in 1971 and 1992 saving attributable to Social Security is at most 0.55 times its standard error, and 12% of net private saving. I then reestimate the preferred specification of Coates and Humphreys (1999), allowing for these structural breaks and relaxing other restrictions. The implied effect of Social Security on saving is again statistically zero. First version received: September 2000/Final version received: September 2001 RID="*" ID="*"  I thank Les Oxley for pointing out that correcting for AR(1) residuals is not a categorical imperative but a cultural relative, in which case common factor restrictions are crucial.     

How Much is Transfer and How Much is Insurance in a Pay‐as‐you‐go System? The German Case

Pay-as-you-go pension systems provide insurance against longevity-related old-age poverty and related risks. They are commonly also used as instruments for redistribution. This paper provides several estimates of the insurance and transfer share of the German public pension system. Estimating these shares is important because they are indicative of taxation-related deadweight losses and influence public acceptance of the pension system. We also disentangle intragenerational from intergenerational transfers. Although our estimate of intragenerational transfers is smaller than recent semi-official estimations, such transfers create substantial deadweight losses. Intergenerational transfers are much larger, thereby contributing to strong negative participation incentives for the younger generation.
JEL classification : H 55; J 26     

Post‐Fordism and Population Ageing

Two features of recent economic experience have been the transition to post‐Fordism and the ageing of populations. Post‐Fordism entails diverse production and consumption, flexible employment, privatisation and a smaller welfare state. Population ageing is predicted to cause financial problems for state pension schemes and could provoke an ageing crisis. Although post‐Fordism and population ageing have similar expected consequences, with a stress on welfare retrenchment, they have been discussed as separate topics and few connections have been made between them; the present paper aims to bring them closer together and consider how they are related. Post‐Fordism could be seen as resolving the ageing crisis and offering people better work and retirement choices in a new, post‐Fordist life course, but this version of events is questionable. An alternative view is that post‐Fordism and the ageing crisis are symptoms of the general movement towards privatisation and laissez faire, which is by no means guaranteed to improve the welfare of older people.     

U.S. Pensions in the 2000s: The Lost Decade?

The last three decades saw a sharp decline in traditional defined benefit (DB) pensions and a corresponding rise in defined contribution (DC) plans. Using the Survey of Consumer Finances from 1983 to 2010, I find that after robust gains in the 1980s and 1990s, pension wealth experienced a marked slowdown in growth from 2001 to 2007 and then fell in absolute terms from 2007 to 2010. Median augmented wealth (the sum of net worth, pensions, and Social Security wealth) advanced slower than median net worth from 1983 to 2007 and its inequality rose more, as DB wealth fell off. However, from 2007 to 2010, the opposite occurred. While median wealth plummeted by 41 percent and inequality spiked by 0.032 Gini points, median augmented wealth fell by only 21 percent and its Gini coefficient rose by only 0.009 points. The differences are due to the moderating influence of Social Security wealth.     

社会保障税与社会保障制度优化

社会保障税是指定用于社会保障的工薪税。本文分析了工薪税的税收归宿和劳动供给弹性的影响。当劳动供给弹性较小时 ,税收主要由劳动力负担 ,而且可能会增加就业压力 ;工薪税在劳动同质程度较高时可以取得较好的再分配效应。本文还描述了社会保障制度优化的理论过程。社会保障制度优化是指现收现付计划和强制储蓄计划的最优搭配 ,它以“黄金律”条件下的隔代帕累托改进为标准。就同代收入再分配而言 ,将收入再分配计划的目标定为提高受益人的受教育水平 ,而不是直接为其提供免费的社会福利 ,将有助于缓解收入再分配的代价。     

论社会保障缴款的性质

为加快我国现代社会保障制度的建立与可持续发展,必须更好地明确政府的社会责任及其资金安排,需要从理论上明确社会保障缴款的性质。社会保障是现代政府的当然职责,社会保障缴款的收支符合税收的所有基本特征,在社会保险基金出现缺口时,国家扮演着最后出场的角色,而且一些国家直接以一般税收作为社会保障的资金来源,而社会保障缴款与受益之间的紧密联系更多的是一种收入策略,因此,社会保障缴款无论称"费"或称"税",其本质都是税收。     

我国社会保障基金管理模式构建研究

社会保障基金管理模式不仅关系到我国社会保障基金能否实现保值和增值的基本目标，而且更直接地影响到开征社会保障税后新的社会保障体系运行的效率。针对我国当前社会保障基金管理模式存在的问题．应当借鉴国外社会保障基金管理的成功经验，研究构建符合我国新型社会保障体系运行要求的社保基金管理模式。     

Social security and retirement incentives in Austria

This paper provides an overview of the interaction between social security and retirement behavior in Austria in the decades up to the on-going reform process. The key question is, how much of the retirement behavior can be attributed to incentive effects of the pension system. We describe the labor market and retirement behavior of the elderly in Austria, survey the key features of the public pension system and finally present the results of a series of simulations aimed at assessing the retirement incentives generated by the pension system. We compute levels and accrual rates of social security wealth and implicit tax rates on continued work according to the method portrayed in Gruber and Wise [Gruber J, Wise D (1999) Social security and retirement around the world. University of Chicago Press, Chicago London]. To some extent, the sharp drop in labor force participation among the elderly must be attributed to major disincentives of the Austrian pension system; the system turns out to provide significant incentives to retire early. Past reforms have reduced the disincentives. Our results, however, show the need to further reform the public pension scheme and to reorient it stronger towards the principle of actuarial fairness.     

国有股权型社会保障研究

内容本文研究了一个存在股权交易的代际交叠模型中,国有股权型社会保障政策对经济长期均衡状态的影响。研究表明,在合理的参数设置下,国有股权型社会保障政策可以促进年轻人对资本积累的贡献,增加经济的均衡产出,提高年轻人和老年人的均衡消费;而一个向年轻人征收社会保障税补贴老年人的现收现付制社会保障税政策(PAYG,pay as you go)是劣于这种国有股权型社会保障政策的。模型的结论对中国社会保障事业发展以及国有股的减持和转持政策有一定的指导意义。     

人口红利转变、老龄化与提高退休年龄

中国人口生育水平的下降和平均预期寿命的延长,导致原来的人口红利出现了转变的趋势,也造成了老龄化负担的加剧。在这种情况下,实行提高退休年龄的政策具备了某种可能性,因为人口红利的逐渐消失和劳动力供求的逆转可能成为提高退休年龄的推力,而养老金制度的老龄化危机则成为提高退休年龄的拉力。在现实条件下,考虑这一政策对城镇就业的冲击以及劳动力异质性的影响,应该实施渐进缓慢、逐步提高退休年龄的政策。     

美国延迟退休激励机制分析——兼论对中国延迟退休年龄改革的启示

美国社会保障法案的颁布标志着现代社会保障制度的建立。在人口老龄化的背景下,美国对法定退休年龄和养老金领取年龄进行改革,逐步废除法定退休年龄,提高正常退休年龄,同时对养老保险制度中的退休收入核查制度进行调整,建立延迟退休补助制度,由此增强延迟退休对老年劳动力延迟退休的激励。美国废除法定退休年龄和延迟正常退休年龄的改革对中国延迟退休年龄改革提供了有益借鉴。     

当前经济形势下关于延长退休年龄的思考

当前,中国人口老龄化问题越来越突出。适当延长退休年龄,可以缓解人口老龄化,增加劳动力供给,减轻养老保险基金支出。但是,严峻的就业形势却是不争的事实。是否需要延长退休年龄呢？在总结前人研究的基础上认为：2010—2020年将是中国延长退休年龄的良好时机。因而,在理论上和政策上应当为延长退休年龄作相应的准备。     

加快健全和完善社会保障制度

文章对加快健全和完善社会保障制度建设的必要性与重要性进行了分析，认为健全社会保障制度是推动经济增长，实现全面小康社会目标的必然选择，是维系社会稳定和国家长治久安的重要保证，也是实现人的全面发展的必要条件。     

弹性退休年龄改革和养老金缺口的弥补:基于人力资本理论

老职工退出劳动领域时点其人力资本存量和新职工刚进入劳动领域时点的人力资本存量应该相等,所以应该采用弹性退休年龄的改革,从增加积累和减少支出二方面来弥补养老金的缺口。用保险精算原理得出了退休年龄和退休给付额之间的对应关系,并提出相应的政策建议。     

论公民社会保障权的实施成本及其控制

社会保障权是现代社会公民的一项基本权利,为公民提供社会保障是现代政府的当然职责,但公民社会保障权的实现,需要消耗巨额公共资源。广义上讲,公民社会保障权的实施成本,主要包括直接支付成本、管理成本与转制成本。其中,社会保障权实施的管理成本应属于社会保障制度建设的基础问题,本文在对社会保障权实施的管理成本影响因素进行实证分析的基础上,提出了降低公民社会保障权实施成本的基本思路与政策建议。     

需求与制度安排:城市化战略下的居家养老服务保障定位与发展

利用华北电力大学调查研究中心的数据描述了我国老年人居家养老保障需求的基本情况,采用logit模型和Multinomial Probit模型分析了影响老年人养老模式选择的因素,重点研究了大城市、城镇和农村对居家养老服务需求的影响。居住地对居家养老和家庭养老的影响较为显著,城市的老年人更倾向于选择居家养老,农村老年人则倾向于选择家庭养老,而城乡对机构养老的需求不存在显著性差异。应将养老财政适当向居家养老倾斜,将居家养老服务保障纳入到城市化发展战略之中,同时做好农村地区养老保障战略的长远规划。     

居家养老型住宅改造与设计研究

完善养老保障模式与改善老年人生活质量,是应对我国人口老龄化快速发展的一项战略目标。老年人居家养老对居住条件以及居家养老型住宅有一定的要求,如地面的平坦型和防滑性,房屋的合理布局等。同时,老年人对住宅的位置及社区服务体系建设等需求,则由于收入的不同存在着较大的差异。     

Notional defined contribution pension schemes: why does only Sweden distribute the survivor dividend?

The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of the survivor dividend in notional defined contribution (NDC) pension schemes. At present, this feature can only be found in the Swedish defined contribution scheme. We develop a model that endorses the idea that the survivor dividend has a strong basis for enabling the NDC scheme to achieve financial equilibrium and that not including the dividend is a non-transparent way of compensating for increases in longevity and/or legacy costs from old pension systems. We also find that the average effect of the dividend remains unchanged for any constant annual rate of population growth, that contributors who reach retirement age always get a higher return than the scheme does, and that population growth enables cohorts with more years of contributions to benefit to a greater extent from the dividend effect.