Social Security and Growth in an Altruistic Economy

This paper studies the macroeconomic impact of private and public intergenerational transfers in the presence of endogenous growth. It focuses on two-sided altruism implying that individuals have both a motive to make gifts to their parents and a motive to leave bequests to their children. The growth effects of social security depend on whether children are making gifts to their parents or parents are leaving bequests to their children. Which of the transfers is operative, in turn, depends on the size of social security benefits. Social security is legislated endogenously. The introduction of a social security program which definitely reduces per capita income growth and harms future generations is contemplated by altruistic individuals even if non-altruistic individuals disapprove it.     

On Social Transfers and Income Taxation

In this paper we provide a different rationale for the use of social transfers. It is assumed that the government is unable to condition the (possibly nonlinear) income tax scheme on the productivity and the endowment of the citizens. However, people applying for social benefit have to demonstrate their financial assets, which is costly for the government to verify. We show that under weak conditions the government will prefer to provide social transfers that induce some voluntary unemployment to reduce the informational rent the highly productive and/or rich types obtain.     

公共教育、社会保障与收入分布

本文使用一个世代交叠模型揭示了公共教育与社会保障调节收入分布的作用机制。研究发现,公共教育能够有效地缩小家庭教育投资差距,从而降低收入差异;社会保障则通过减少低收入家庭的劳动供给、增加其有效家庭教育时间来降低收入差异。本文的数值模拟结果显示,在同样的支出水平下公共教育调节收入差异的能力比社会保障更强。并且当存在财政预算约束时,从降低收入差异的角度来看,若财政预算规模较低则应当将资金优先用于公共教育;若财政预算规模较高则应当在公共教育与社会保障之间保持平衡。     

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。     

论社会保障税与社会保障的可持续发展

建立健全与经济发展水平相适应的社会保障体系,是经济社会协调发展的必然要求。但是现行社会保障收费制度越来越难以满足社会保障对资金的庞大需求,社会保障资金筹措困难,社会保障筹资方式的弊端日益凸显。为了进一步健全社会保障体系,解决当前和今后社会保障资金的来源问题,开征社会保障税已成为当务之急。     

Decentralizing Allocation and Distribution by Separation with Information Transfers

Governments often divide operations into separate branches that face different constraints and have limited information. Such separation is feasible if each can operate by solving a simple optimization problem using limited information without requiring game-theoretic calculations about others' actions. We specify two structures of one-way information transfers that allow this. For each structure, we present conditions for unified and decentralized decision-making to have identical outcomes. One of them corresponds to using a Samuelson aggregate welfare function that is not always fully efficient. We apply our results to several examples, including public goods and Ramsey pricing.     

开征社会保障税与完善社会保障制度的思考

本文介绍了世界各国社会保障税运行的基本情况，分析了我国社会保障筹资模式存在的主要问题．指出开征社会保障税势在必行，并对如何开征社会保障税的内容提出了自己的设想。     

Bequests, Inter Vivos Transfers, and Wealth Distribution

This paper constructs a heterogeneous agent overlapping generations model with bequests and inter vivos transfers. In the model, households in the same family line behave strategically to determine their consumption, working hours, gifts, and savings. Calibrating the model to the U.S. economy, the paper measures time preference and parental altruism consistent with the economy's capital-output ratio and the size of intergenerational transfers. The model with intergenerational transfers better explains, although not fully, the wealth distribution of the United States. The paper also analyzes the effects of government policy changes on wealth accumulation, distribution, and social welfare. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D31, D64, D91, H31.     

公民社会保障权与农村社会保障制度

构建农村社会保障制度,应以宪法赋予农村居民的社会保障权为依据,以实现城乡社会保障体系一体化为目标,加大中央政府资助力度,从完善社会救济制度起步,并着力于在农村建立重大公共传染性疾病的防治保障制度,同时还应在对城市居民养老保险和医疗保险实行"统账分离"的基础上,分步骤为农村居民提供社会统筹养老保险和医疗保险.     

Financing Pay-as-you-go Public Pension Systems: Some Notes in the Light of the Classical-type Theory of Income Distribution

The paper uses a Sraffa-type two-sector model to study how the presence of retired workers interacts with the distribution of the surplus between workers and capitalists (firms). In particular, the paper investigates how the ongoing diminution of the ratio between active and retired workers affects the wage-profits-pensions frontier, which is defined after allowing that a social security tax, which reduces the claims of active workers and capitalists on the surplus of the economy, finances the pensions distributed each year to retired workers. Finally, it is argued that the different impact of defined-benefit and defined-contribution pay-as-you-go pension schemes depends on the actual incidence of payroll taxes.     

Social Security Income and Health Care Spending: Evidence from the Social Security Notch

In this paper, I exploit Social Security legislation changes to identify the causal effect of Social Security income on out‐of‐pocket medical expenditures of the elderly. Using the 1986–1994 Consumer Expenditure Survey and an instrumental variables strategy, the empirical results show that health care expenditures are responsive to changes in Social Security income for elderly individuals with less than a high‐school education. The estimated income elasticities are between 1.41 and 3.47, depending on the outcome measures, and are statistically significant at conventional levels. The findings are in contrast to existing studies that find a small income elasticity at the individual/household level.     

社会保障与女性成才

女性人才的数量与质量在一定程度上可以衡量一个国家的社会发展水平。按照人口性别比例来看，女性人才占居人才总量一半左右才是“理想状态”，但实际上，女性人才所占比例很小，女性在社会生活中的地位与其自身的数量极不对称。本文对女性在经济、政治、科学研究等社会生活主要层面的参与程度进行了分析，通过研究女性参与程度来探寻两性平等的社会文化根源和社会制度根源，并着重分析社会保障为女性成才可能提供的制度保证。     

发达国家政府间社会保障管理责权的划分

合理划分各级政府之间的管理责权是社会保障制度顺利实施的重要保障。发达国家的实践经验表明,政府间管理责权合理划分的关键是要充分发挥集中与分散的优势,并配之以较为完善的政府间转移支付制度,这对于进一步完善我国政府间社会保障管理责权划分有着重要的指导意义。     

西方社会保障制度改革与我国社会保障制度的重构

我国的社会保障制度还很不完善,社会保障水平严重落后于经济发展水平。我国应积极借鉴国外的经验与教训,加速建立全国统一的社会保障制度;逐步增加社会保障项目,完善社会保障的功能和体系;推进相关制度和政策的改革与调整;协调政府保障与家庭保障、社区保障、企业补充保险和商业保险。     

Social Security and the increasing longevity gap

Growth in overall life expectancy is straining the Social Security budget, and the gap in life expectancy between the rich and poor is widening. Motivated by these facts, this paper does four things. First, we develop a simple way to summarize the degree of progressivity in a Social Security system. Second, we show that growth in the life expectancy gap over the last few decades unwinds three-quarters of the progressivity of the Social Security system. Third, we develop simple reforms to Social Security that maintain the progressivity of the system and restore fiscal solvency. Fourth, we estimate the welfare effects of these potential reforms.     

Social Security Liabilities

This paper reviews the long-term financial problems facing the U.S. Social Security system. Not only is the system out of long-term actuarial balance, but implicit rates of return on worker contributions are low and dropping. The paper discusses different approaches for dealing with the twin problems suggested by the 1994–1996 Advisory Council on Social Security, ending with a case for a middle-of-the-road approach featuring modest long-term benefit cuts and small, centrally managed, add-on individual accounts. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number: H55.