Pension Challenges and Pension Reforms in Oecd Countries

The 30 OECD member countries have very diverse pension systems.Current old-age public pension spending varies between lessthan 1 and more than 10 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).Public spending on pensions per person aged 65 or over variesfrom less than 15 to more than 40 per cent of economy-wide GDPper head. For workers entering the labour market today, thetarget pension from all mandatory sources for an average earnervaries between 30 and 100 per cent of individual earnings. Recentpension reforms have a number of common themes. First, pensioneligibility conditions have been tightened. Second, the indexationof pensions in payment has become less generous. Third, somepension schemes link benefit levels to changes in life expectancy.Finally, a number of countries have introduced defined-contributionpensions: privately managed schemes where the pension benefitdepends on contributions and investment returns. Footnotes ¹ E-mail addresses: peter.whiteford{at}oecd.org; edward.whitehouse{at}oecd.org     

Pension fairness in China

The most populous country in the world, China faces immense socio-economic challenges providing adequate pensions to its growing elderly population. In that country, pensions available to older people vary considerably across the country's various pension schemes. This paper calculates the fairness coefficients of these pensions based on pension income, contributions, demand, and generational gap. The analysis shows that the pension fairness coefficients are 0.53, 0.38, 0.95, and 0.82, respectively. Synthesizing pension income, contributions, demand, and generational gap, the paper suggests that, in China, old-age pensions across different schemes are absolutely unfair. Finally, it analyzes the superficial and deeper factors behind pension unfairness in China before providing policy recommendations for improving the fairness of the country's pension system.     

Revenue Effects of Tax Facilities for Pension Savings

Many countries have tax facilities for pension savings. These facilities are often associated with the application of the cash-flow treatment of pensions: pension contributions are tax-exempt, capital income of pension funds is tax-exempt, and pension benefits are taxed, but usually at a relatively low rate. This paper investigates the revenue effects of a cash-flow tax regime for pension savings by full present-value calculations. A comprehensive income tax system is used as a benchmark. We present an empirical analysis for the Netherlands as a typical example of a country with funded pensions. Our calculations show that current taxation of pensions implies a major tax revenue loss. For the year 2003, we estimate a fiscal pension subsidy of 1.4% to 1.5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Differentiating Indexation in Dutch Pension Funds

Funded social security programs are particularly vulnerable to economic and financial market shocks. As a consequence of the recent crisis, a large fraction of the Dutch pension funds had to submit restoration plans for the recovery of their buffers. Such plans will have to rely primarily on a mix of reduced benefit indexation and increased pension contributions. Hence, a discussion has emerged whether indexation should be differentiated across the various groups of participants in a pension fund. We investigate this issue numerically, developing an applied many-generation small open-economy OLG model with heterogeneous agents. The pension system consists of a first-pillar PAYG component and a second pillar with a pension fund. In our stochastic simulations, we hit the economy with a variety of unexpected demographic, economic and financial shocks. We compare uniform indexation of pension rights across all fund participants with alternatives such as status-contingent indexation in which pensions are protected against price inflation. While the aggregate welfare consequences are small, group-specific consequences are more substantial with the workers and future born losing and retirees benefitting from a shift away from uniform indexation. The exception is a scheme which links indexation directly to the fund’s asset performance. Under this scheme the retired benefit without other groups losing. The welfare effects are primarily the result of systematic welfare redistributions rather than of shifts in the benefits of risk sharing. Contribution rates always have to rise substantially from their initial levels to maintain the system’s sustainability. An increase in the retirement age that leaves existing pension rights untouched does little to avoid this rise with its adverse labour market consequences.     

新疆生产建设兵团养老保险运行机制分析

新疆建设兵团在20世纪50-60年代建立了养老保险制度。兵团的养老保险制度在维护团场职工权益、维持兵团稳定和发展等方面发挥了难以替代的作用。随着市场经济的深入发展,兵团养老保险受到一系列因素的制约,难以良性运行。文章全面描述了新疆生产建设兵团养老保险的制度构架和运行状况,尤其分析了老龄化和养老金支付能力弱等问题给兵团养老保险健康发展带来的不利影响。文章在此基础上提出促进兵团养老保险制度平稳运行的意见和建议。     

Costs and potential funding of expanded public pension coverage in Asia

Public pension burdens in most emerging Asian economies are still relatively small. However, there are a number of reasons to believe that they will increase markedly in the coming years. First, many Asian economies will face rapidly ageing populations, which will raise pension and other old‐age‐related spending dramatically. Second, as economies develop, political pressures to expand the coverage of public pensions and raise pension benefits will likely increase. The first objective of this paper is to identify the potential fiscal burden of public pensions in 23 emerging Asian economies, based on econometric models and forecasts of GDP and demographic trends. Using two different methodologies yields estimated increases in the average share of public pension expenditures in GDP of 1.0 percentage point and 3.6 percentage points by 2030 compared with current levels. We believe the latter estimate is more realistic. The second objective is to recommend policies to provide adequate funding for public pension needs, including enhancing the efficiency of social insurance programs, improving the balance of revenues and expenditures, implementing more explicit fiscal rules and frameworks, and establishing stronger fiscal surveillance at the national and regional levels.     

The role of public pensions in income inequality among elderly households in China 1988–2013

Using data from the Chinese Household Income Project surveys for 1988, 1995, 2002 and 2013, we investigate the role of public pensions in income inequality among households with elderly members across two decades of pension policy reforms. We examine the distribution and role of public pensions at a national level and analyse the evolution of the contribution of public pensions to national income inequality across a much more extended time period than earlier studies, which have generally focused on regional changes over short periods. Our findings suggest that public pensions have become the most important source of income for households with elderly members on average in China, but the distribution of pension income is highly unequal, with a Gini coefficient of 0.74 in 2013. Public pension income has been the largest source of income inequality for elderly households since 2002 and contributed to more than half of total income inequality in the most recent year of the survey. This finding is robust against variations in the income inequality measures used. Additionally, our analysis suggests unequal distribution of pension benefits is the primary driver of pensioners' income inequality. Among several hypothetical policy changes, ensuring a minimum pension benefit for all existing pensioners seems to be the most fiscally effective option in reducing income inequality, with a 0.8% reduction in the Gini coefficient for a 1% increase in public pension expenditure.     

Do Mandatory Pensions decrease Household Savings? Evidence for the Netherlands

The Dutch mandatory pension system consists of two parts: a public pay-as-you-go part that provides a minimum income to all Dutch inhabitants over age 64 and an occupation-specific capital-funded part that provides supplementary retirement income. The goal of this paper is to test for the effect of mandatory pensions on discretionary household savings. The data are drawn from the CentER Savings Survey. A result of the empirical analysis is that the impact of the public part of the Dutch pension system is not well identified. The occupational pensions have a significant negative impact on savings motives with respect to old age. The evidence on the effect on household wealth is mixed.     

Reforming Occupational Pensions in the Netherlands: Contract and Intergenerational Aspects

De Economist - In the summer of 2020 the Dutch government and social partners have agreed on a pension reform involving the transformation of occupational pensions from the current defined-benefit...     

退休年龄与养老保险基金危机——基于养老保险基金收支影响因素的视角

退休制度和养老限险制度都是为了保障劳动者晚年生活而制定的，然而养老保险危机在多个国家出现并产生重大破坏，引起全球范围内的养老保险制度改革。退休年龄的改变往往是改革的重要内容。文章分别对现收现付制和完全积累制的养老保险基金进行了因素分析．肯定了提高退休年龄通过降低赡养率和被动率，分剐可以改善现收现付制和完全积累制养老保险基金的收支状况，缓解养老保险危机。但是否实行提高退休年龄的政策，还要对社会、经济因素进行奎面考虑。     

Stochastic Generational Accounting Applied to Reforms of Dutch Occupational Pensions

This paper examines stochastic or ‘value based’ generational accounting as a method to assess the intergenerational redistributive impact of pension reform. The analysis is applied to three policy changes to the regulation of Dutch occupational pensions during the years 2012 and 2013 that mark the transition from defined benefit pensions to ‘defined ambition’ pension schemes.     

Generational accounting in Korea

This paper reassesses the long-term fiscal position of Korea using generational accounting, modified to reflect special features of the Korean fiscal situation, notably prospective changes in public pension benefits due to the pension system's maturation and increasing expenditure on social welfare programs consistent with convergence to levels in other OECD countries. Our findings suggest that unless policy toward existing generations is substantially altered, future generations will face a heavy fiscal burden. For reasonable growth and interest rate assumptions, the difference between 2000 newborns and those born after 2000 ranges from 60 to 180%. We also find that a substantial part of the fiscal burden on future generations is explained by the long-run budgetary imbalances of public pensions and Medical Insurance. J. Japanese Int. Economies 20 (2) (2006) 234–268.     

Measuring the redistributive impact of public pensions

Summary In this paper a formula is introduced for measuring the redistributive impact of public pensions over the life cycle of different income classes. This measure takes account of redistributions of lifetime incomes within a generation, but not of redistributions which are purely intertemporal for one individual and can be used for different pension systems. An empirical application is given with data on the Dutch income distribution. It appears that the redistributive impact of the public pension is determined by the form of the age-income profile, economic growth, the real rate of interest and the length of the working life for different income classes.     

Do funded pensions contribute to higher aggregate savings? A cross-country analysis

Do Funded Pensions Contribute to Higher Aggregate Savings? A Cross-Country Analysis.—In this paper we test the hypothesis that increases in funded pension wealth contribute to higher aggregate savings by employing a panel data set of ten countries over the 1982–1993 period. We develop a proxy for changes in funded pension wealth for this sample of countries based on pension fund asset data. Using this measure and controlling for other determinants of savings, we estimate the relationship between aggregate saving rates and changes in funded pension wealth. Our results suggest that the build-up of pension assets exerts a positive and statistically significant effect on aggregate saving rates, and that this impact differs for OECD and non-OECD countries. JEL no. E21, G23, O57     

Impact of the National Pension Fund on the Suitability of Elderly Pensions in Thailand*

This study combines a traditional hypothetical worker approach with the techniques of stochastic forecasting to provide a better sense about the suitability of the pension system for formal sector private workers in Thailand. With regard to the proposed defined‐contribution pension, we find that workers with a 40‐year career can only expect a median replacement rate of approximately 13–14 percent of their final 5 years of income. Most of the pension benefits will still likely come from the unsustainable defined‐benefit pension system and further reforms will be needed to maintain suitable pensions.     

资产规模、覆盖率与替代率:国际视野的我国企业年金现状

我国的企业年金制度已有10余年历史,但整体水平仍相对滞后。无论是从资产规模、覆盖率和替代率,还是从税收优惠政策来看,我国企业年金的发展与OECD国家相比还存在较大差距。加快建设企业年金,应扩大覆盖面,促进集合年金和职业年金的发展;提高替代率,完善企业年金的税收优惠政策。     

Pension reform with migration and mobile capital: is a Pareto improvement possible?

This paper shows that in a two-country two-overlapping-generations model with migration, capital mobility and an immobile production factor (land), a locally welfare-improving pension reform at the cost of the neighboring country is possible if land plays a minor role in production. Furthermore, differences in the size of the PAYG pension schemes between the countries distort the international allocation of labour and capital. As a result, a Pareto-improving pension reform is possible if countries employ PAYG pension schemes of different size, provided that a federal government exists that redistributes benefits and losses of the reform both intergenerationally and internationally.     

淮南为橘淮北为枳：高福利模式在南北欧国家的实施效果差异及对中国的启示

2008年爆发的全球金融危机以及随后的欧洲主权债务危机表明,同样是高福利国家,北欧国家保持着较高的经济增长率、较低的失业率以及相对健康的财政状况,而希腊、葡萄牙、西班牙和意大利等南欧国家却陷入了空前的经济危机和社会危机之中。分析其中原因,有社会信任感差异很大。导致税收和社保制度的执行效果不同;社会保障支出结构失调,导致高福利制度依然未能缓解南欧国家的收入分配悬殊;超越财政支付能力的社保支出规模、教育与就业政策出现偏差以及规模庞大的地下经济和盛行的家庭养老模式等都严重制约社会保障制度发挥其应有的职能。这些教训为我国社保制度的完善提供了很好的借鉴。