The Role of Income Effects in Early Retirement

We provide a long‐term perspective on the individual retirement behavior and on the future of retirement by emphasizing the role of (negative) income effects. We consider a political economic theoretical framework, with actuarially “fair” and “unfair” early retirement schemes, and derive a political equilibrium with positive social security contribution rates and early retirement. A reduction in the wages in youth, consistent with the recent labor market trends since the massive introduction of temporary jobs, induces workers to postpone retirement, and—in the “unfair” system—leads to lower contribution rates. A reduction in the growth rate of the economy has opposite effects on the retirement decisions, leading—in the “unfair” system—to more early retirement. Aging induces a negative income effect, but has also an opposite political effect on social security contributions and retirement decisions. For an actuarially “fair” social security system, we provide conditions for the political effect to dominate; in an “unfair” scheme, numerical simulations confirm a slight predominance of the political effect, as contribution rates increase. These results may shed some light on the future of early retirement in aging societies.     

Economic Retirement Age and Lifelong Learning: A Theoretical Model With Heterogeneous Labor,Biased Technical Change and International Sourcing

The employability of an aging population in a world of continuous and biased technical change is top of the political agenda. Due to endogenous human capital depreciation the effective retirement age is often below statutory retirement age resulting in permanent non‐employability of older workers. We analyze this phenomenon in a putty‐putty human capital vintage model and focus on education and the speed of human capital depreciation. Introducing a two‐stage education system with initial schooling and lifelong learning, not even lifelong learning turns out to be capable of aligning economic and statutory retirement. However, well‐designed education programs will keep more workers in highly productive activities at the end of their working life, and hence will substitute for simple social transfers, or for an early switch towards very low paid jobs.     

Increasing longevity and social security reforms—A legislative procedure approach

Increasing longevity causes an upward trend in the dependency ratio in many countries. This raises concerns about the financial sustainability of social security schemes, and reform proposals and initiatives abound. It is shown that a fundamental policy choice inevitably arises since a given social security system cannot be maintained by simply indexing pension ages to longevity. The political reform process is analysed using the so-called legislative procedure. When longevity increases, the retirement age is raised more than proportionally to the increase in longevity, but the young also make larger transfers to the old.     

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。     

A quantitative theory of social security without commitment

This paper investigates the determination of social security within a general equilibrium, overlapping-generations model where agents live for many periods, and replacement rates are determined through voting in each period by forward looking agents. The distinctive feature is the study of Markov equilibrium policy outcomes which do not rest on a commitment mechanism. Versions of the model are calibrated to the US economic, policy, and demographic conditions. Even in the absence of commitment, the policy preferences of tax-paying working-age voters sustain a positive level of retirement benefits. This follows because the current choices about social security will have, at the time when the current voters will retire, a positive impact on the political support for social security and on the returns to savings. On the other hand, the projected decline in the U.S. population growth rate causes the replacement rate and the tax rate to decline. This quantitative response without commitment differs from that in the case when policies are committed at time zero.     

人口老龄化、社会保障与人力资本投资

本文以我国养老保险的"统账结合"模式为例,探讨了社会保障制度对人口老龄化和人力资本投资的影响。根据本文的推导和验证,增加"统账结合"模式中个人账户的比例,将会对居民的人力资本投资产生一定的激励作用,并延缓其退出劳动力市场的时间,从而缓解人口老龄化对经济和社会发展带来的压力。另外,本文还在"统账结合"模型下,分析了人力资本投资与退休的关系,结果发现,增加人力资本投资,可以延长居民的劳动参与时间。由此,我国的社会保障制度应该在以下两个方面进行改革:适当增加"统账结合"模式中个人承担的比例;加快农村的社会保障体系建设,促进覆盖全国的社会保障体系的形成。     

Social security and economic integration

This letter analyzes the impact of economic integration on capital accumulation and capital flows when countries differ in their social security systems. Funding and early retirement both foster capital accumulation relative to pay-as-you-go pensions with flexible retirement. When economies integrate, both imply capital outflow possibly resulting in utility losses.     

Migration,social security,and economic growth

This paper studies the effect of population aging and international migration on economic performance. Fertility is endogenized so that immigrants and natives can have different fertility rates, which provides a more realistic view of policy effects. Fertility is an important determinant to the tax burden of social security since it affects the quantity and quality of future tax payers. We find that introducing immigrants into the economy can reduce the tax burden of social security. If the survival probability of young agents to old age (or the replacement ratio) is high enough, the growth rate of GDP per worker for an economy with international migration will be higher than for a closed economy. Regarding migration policies, our numerical results indicate that economic growth rate of GDP per worker will first decrease then increase as the flow of immigrants increases. Attracting more skilled immigrants will enhance economic growth.     

退休年龄选择机理：基于人力资本与社会保障的视角

近年来,延长退休年龄问题日益成为社会和学界的热点话题。本文从我国人口老龄化社会的到来并渐近达到峰值谈起,指出人口老龄化趋势、人均寿命的延长以及我国人口平均人力资本存量的不断增加要求我们实行延迟退休制度。     

Long-term Forecast of the Demographic Transition in Japan and Asia

The demographic structure of Asia is expected to change rapidly from around 2020 up to around 2050. Following Japan, which is already at an advanced stage of aging and birthrate decline, China, South Korea, Thailand, and Singapore will also witness a further decline in their birthrates and an aging of their populations. Next in line will be the remaining countries of the Association of South-East Asian Nations as well as India. Such changes, accompanied by a decline in the labor force, will not only adversely affect economic growth, but also have a major impact on voting structures, savings rates, and social security systems. Moreover, the process of demographic aging in Asia will be faster than in Japan, and its extent will be substantial, both of which exacerbates the negative effects. On positive side, these trends will give rise to the emergence of new markets.     

International differences in social security and saving

The U.S. Social Security Administration, in cooperation with similar agencies in other countries, recently developed estimates of social security benefits for twelve major industrial countries. The present paper uses these data to estimate the effects of social security benefits on saving and retirement in an extended life cycle model. The parameter estimates indicate that, with retirement behavior given, social security significantly reduces private saving; an increase of the benefit-to-earnings ratio by 10 percentage points reduces the saving rate by approximately 3 percentage points.     

人口老龄化对老年社会保障及社会服务提出的挑战

根据最新统计资料,就某些发达国家和中国的人口老龄化对社会保障的影响问题作了研究。人口老龄化的社会经济影响主要体现在社会保障的问题上,由于人口老龄化,特别是正规职业人口的老龄化导致退休金、医疗保障和老年人的服务问题成为普遍性的社会问题,解决这些问题成为我国社会保障制度建设重点所在。     

'Young In,Old Out' Revisited: New Patterns of Employment Replacement in the Italian Economy

This paper, based largely on data from the Italian social security (INPS) records, shows that recent employment trends in Italy have been marked by large job and worker turnover and a new and strong process of renewal and substitution of labour in industry. Entries of young workers have shown a remarkable increase, mainly through the application of work and training contracts ('contratti di formazione e lavoro') that provide firms with a means to cut labour costs. Meanwhile many workers in their 40s with considerable seniority, but still perfectly fit to go on working, found themselves squeezed out. The exit of this generation of mature workers was eased through subsidised early retirement, golden handshakes and a wide application of the 'cassa integrazione guadagni' (wage supplementation fund). This pattern of labour force replacement in industrial production, described as 'young in, old out', is at odds with the frequent ranking of Italy among the industrial countries hampered by rigid labour markets and questions theories of unemployment based on 'insider-outsider' hypotheses.     

The generosity of the welfare state towards the elderly

This paper distinguishes among three types of generosity of social security systems: average generosity, generosity towards early retirement and generosity towards the poor. On the basis of theoretical predictions, it examines the statistical correlations among those types of generosity for 14 OECD countries over the period 1985–2000. It also shows how they have evolved over time and tries to relate this evolution to the process of economic integration. There are three main findings, the first one being a positive relation between average social security spending and poverty alleviation. There is the negative relation between average spending and inequality reduction. Finally, over the period 1985–1995 one sees that poverty alleviation increases on average, but to a degree that decreases with economic openness.     

事业单位职工延迟退休年龄影响因素实证分析

本文以生命周期理论为依据,以事业单位职工作为实证研究的对象,对退休年龄的影响因素从个人特征、经济因素、工作因素、制度因素四个维度进行问卷调查,借助二元Logistic回归模型进行分析。结果显示,最适退休年龄、工龄、升职空间、继续工作意愿这4个因素均与职工延迟退休意愿的强烈程度呈正相关关系,退休后社会保障外收入则与延迟退休意愿呈负相关关系。     

退休冲击、消费动态支出变动及消费结构优化*——基于企业、机关事业单位退休人员消费影响因素的比较

中国经济已进入新常态,然而老龄化趋势日益严重,靠出口和投资拉动的滞后经济增长模式,使得中国转型阶段面临两大核心挑战--退休冲击和国内消费不足。如何应对退休危机,提升居民消费,是亟待解决的问题。本文从中国“养老金双轨制”这一热点问题切入,选取了中国1998-2014年30个地区宏观面板数据分静态和动态两大部分对理论进行实证检验,重点分析企业和事业单位退休冲击对城镇居民消费的影响。在居民总消费支出水平方面,企业单位退休冲击对其具有显著抑制作用,机关事业单位退休冲击对其具有显著正向效应。居民消费结构方面,情况较为复杂。产生这些异质效应的主要原因在于退休双轨制造成的不平等差异和两类退休人群自身主观区别等。鉴于此,本文提出了释放并轨改革的消费效应,完善养老、医疗等社会保障体系,稳定居民消费预期,调整市场结构,推动老龄产业和银发市场的发展等政策建议。       

Endogenous retirement and public pension system reform in Spain

Population aging has spurred developed countries around the world to reform their PAYG pension systems. In particular, delaying legal retirement ages and reducing the generosity of pension benefits have been widely implemented changes. This paper assesses the potential success of these policies in the case of the Spanish economy, and compares them with the results obtained by the (rather modest) reforms already implemented in 1997 and 2001. This evaluation is accomplished in a heterogeneous-agent dynamic general equilibrium model where individuals can adjust their retirement ages in response to changes to the pension rules. We check the ability of the model to reproduce the basic stylized facts of retirement behavior (particularly the pattern of early retirement induced by minimum pensions). The model is then used to explore the impact of pension reforms. We find that already implemented changes actually increase the implicit liabilities of the system. In contrast, delaying the legal retirement age and extending the averaging period in the pension formula to cover most of the individual's life-cycle can reduce the implicit liabilities substantially. These findings reveal the failure of the Spanish political system to distribute the costs of population aging more evenly across the generations.     

社会养老保险与退休年龄选择*——基于CFPS2010的微观经验证据

随着我国预期寿命的增加与社会养老保险金负担的上升,延迟退休已经成为必然选择。而作为重要的家庭决策,退休行为如何受到养老保险的影响值得研究。本文采用2010年中国家庭追踪调查数据（CFPS）,通过Probit模型和工具变量法实证分析了养老保险对中老年劳动者实际退休年龄选择的影响。结果表明,在控制了各类家庭异质性因素之后,养老保险对劳动者的提前退休具有显著的正向激励,同时显著降低了延迟退休概率。本文以代际居住情况衡量家庭养老行为,发现对于家庭养老影响较强的样本而言,养老保险的退休激励作用并不明显;反之,如果劳动者选择不与子女共同居住,养老保险就可能显著地影响其实际退休行为。     

崛起与转型的政治经济学：基于中国的经验研究

当前我国滥觞于内生性能源、资源的刚性约束和外源性的政治竞争与安全压力,国际社会潜在的丛林竞争规则,大国兴衰沉浮的历史经验警示,和平崛起战略的顺利实现与否势必首先寄望于国内市场经济导向型改革与体制转型战略的成败。为增长而竞争的财政分权和晋升激励成为中国政府推动经济增长的动力源泉,它有助于增进转型初期的经济增长和资源配置。在晚近荣辱浮沉的历史湍流中,在沉淀了师从苏俄与欧美发展模式的喧嚣之后,必须注意防范现有自由资本主义发展模式的制度性痼疾。中国的体制改革和宪政转型不能是邯郸学步式的凌空虚蹈,考量东亚的国家规模、社会传统与发展共性,权衡中国历史与现实的经济、制度、文化与意识形态,运用法治规则一市场机制,培育柔性威权一善治和谐社会的国家也许是较为现实的理性选择。     

ANNUITIZED ASSET ADEQUACY IN JAPAN: THE DEMAND FOR INDIVIDUAL PENSIONS

In this paper, I analyze the impact of social security wealth, retirement payments, and living expenses during retirement on people's retirement savings in general, and on their individual pension holdings in particular, using micro data from a 1996 Japanese household survey. I confirm a replacement effect of social security on saving for all types of households and on individual pensions for self‐employed households only. This suggests that the social security assets of self‐employed households are less than their optimal level of annuitized assets and that they would increase their demand for individual pensions if social security benefits were to be reduced.