Demographic structure and growth: The effect of unfunded social security

This paper examines how demographics affect economic growth in an OLG model with unfunded social security. We derive two interesting results. First, the relationship between population growth and per capita output growth is hump shaped. Second, the relationship between life expectancy and per capita output growth is also hump shaped.     

Labor supply elasticity and social security reform

Previous literature on social security reform has used a variety of period utility functions and calibrated values for the intertemporal elasticity of substitution (IES) in labor. In this paper, we show that the effects of social security reforms on aggregate labor supply are invariant to plausible values of the IES, but the effect of such reforms on the profile of hours over the life-cycle is highly sensitive to the IES. We first establish these results analytically in a simple partial-equilibrium setting and then demonstrate their robustness in a general equilibrium model calibrated to match key U.S. macroeconomic indicators. We find that the aggregate effects are similar regardless of the wide range of the values of IES used in calibrated economies. However, social security reform leads to a large reallocation of hours worked over the life-cycle, from early years to later working years, and the size of this reallocation significantly increases with the IES.     

Growth and social security: the role of human capital

This paper studies the growth and efficiency effects of pay-as-you-go financed social security when human capital is the engine of growth. Employing a variant of the Lucas model [Lucas, R.E., 1988. On the mechanics of economic development. Journal of Monetary Economics 22, 3–42.] with overlapping generations, it is shown that a properly designed, unfunded social security system leads to higher output growth than a fully funded one. Furthermore, the economy with an unfunded social security is efficient, while the other one is not. These results stand in sharp contrast to those obtained in models where the reason for economic growth is physical capital accumulation.     

加强社保基金管理，提高投资收益

2006年上海社保基金案东窗事发，涉案金额达百亿人民币，由于社保基金牵涉老百姓日后生计，关系到社会稳定，一时之间，该案成为社会关注的焦点。但不可否认，在我国社保资金存在巨大缺口的压力下，将社保基金用于投资赚取收益并没有错。这一案件提醒我们，不能因为社保基金的特殊性，就忽略社保基金的投资管理。随着我国社保基金规模不断变大，投资领域和方式的不断出新，加强社保基金投资管理，非常关键。     

社会保障的新理念与中国农民扶持性社会保障体制

中国的市场化改革使广大的中国农民直接暴露在现代市场经济风险下,而家庭联产承包制的实施又使改革开放前与计划经济体制相适应的保障体制无法运转,这样,中国广大农民成为了现代市场经济中最没有保障的弱势群体。因此,建立农民社会保障体系的意义重大。中国农民社会保障体制迟迟没有建立的原因有二:其一,传统社会保障理念仅考虑到其工具价值,忽视了其目的价值;其二,农民的组织化程度低,导致他们在社会利益分割过程中没有谈判地位。从建立农民社会保障体制的双重价值出发,建立保障农民生存权和基本发展权的农民扶持性社会保障体制具有重要意义。     

论加大财政对社会保障的投入是构建和谐社会的基础

人权中最首要的、最基础的是生存权。加大财政对社会保障的投入，使社会保障有坚强稳定的资金支持，有利于从根本上维护我国公民的基本生存权，从而为我国的人权事业和构建和谐社会提供经济和制度保障。     

Social interaction and children's academic test scores: Evidence from the National Child Development Study

We explore the relationship between educational attainment and social interaction using individual level data from the British National Child Development Study. To be specific, we analyze whether an intergenerational aspect to this relationship exists by examining the relationship between the educational attainment of children and the degree of formal social activity undertaken by their parents. Our results suggest that children's scores in reading, mathematics and vocabulary tests are positively associated with the extent of their parents’ formal social interaction, and this relationship is robust to alternative definitions of social interaction.     

统筹城乡社会保障制度的研究

统筹我国城乡社会保障发展是进一步提高城乡经济水平的需要,也是全面落实科学发展观的必然要求。一直以来,我国社会保障发展的特点是城乡分割的二元结构,农村的社会保障制度建设相对落后,而城镇却已经建立起了现代化的社会保障体系。通过分析制约城乡社会保障制度建设的主要因素,从而提出城乡社会保障统筹发展的对策,为实现我国城乡社会保障的均衡发展提供保证。     

Unions, progressive taxes, and education subsidies

Progressive income taxes moderate distortionary wage demands by trade unions and thereby reduce unemployment, and at the same time underlie disincentives to acquire skills and decrease labour productivity. Governments can respond by combining progressive taxes with subsidies to investment in human capital. A system of generous education subsidies and steep progressive tax rates is more likely to emerge, the greater the market power of trade unions and the better the ability of governments to influence private education decisions. Empirical analysis for several OECD countries provides results consistent with these propositions. A policy mix of high education subsidies and relatively progressive income taxes is found in countries where union membership is significant.     

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.     

A positive theory of social security

In this paper I make two points. First, I argue that social security programs around the world link public pensions to retirement: people do not lose their pensions if they make a million dollars a year in the stock market, but they do confront marginal tax rates of up to 100 percent if they choose to work. Second, after arguing that most existing theories cannot explain this fact, I construct a positive theory that is consistent with it. The main idea is that pensions are a means to induce retirement—that is, to buy the elderly out of the labor force because aggregate output is higher if the elderly do not work. This is modeled through positive externalities in the average stock of human capital: because skills depreciate with age, the elderly have lower-than-average skill and, as a result, have a negative effect on the productivity of the young. When the difference between the skill level of the young and that of the old is large enough, aggregate output in an economy where the elderly do not work is higher. Retirement is desirable in this case, and social security transfers are the means by which such retirement is induced. The theory developed in this paper is also shown to be consistent with a number of other regularities documented in Section 1.     

论农民工社会保障的构建

现在上亿农村劳动力进入城镇就业,农民工已经成为我国产业工人的主体。近年来,农民工问题受到了社会各界的广泛关注,农民工的社会保障问题也逐步进入政府视野,农民工社会保障建设纳入政府工作日程。     

Cooperative behavior and the frequency of social interaction

We report results from an experiment that examines play in an indefinitely repeated, two-player Prisoner's Dilemma game. Each experimental session involves N subjects and a sequence of indefinitely repeated games. The main treatment consists of whether agents are matched in fixed pairings or matched randomly in each indefinitely repeated game. Within the random matching treatment, we elicit player's strategies and beliefs or vary the information that players have about their opponents. Contrary to a theoretical possibility suggested by Kandori [1992. Social norms and community enforcement. Rev. Econ. Stud. 59, 63–80], a cooperative norm does not emerge in the treatments where players are matched randomly. On the other hand, in the fixed pairings treatment, the evidence suggests that a cooperative norm does emerge as players gain more experience.     

辽宁省社会保障水平的国内比较

社会保障水平是反映一个国家或地区经济发展和人们生活水平的一个重要指标,根据辽宁省近五年来社会保障支出的数据,分析计算辽宁省社会保障水平,并与国内若干省市的社会保障水平进行了比较,进而分析辽宁省的社会保障发展状况,以及与其他省市社会保障水平比较中反映出的若干问题,从而对辽宁省的社会保障水平做出总体性评价。     

浅析新农村的社会保障问题

社会保障是构建社会主义和谐社会的一项基础性制度建设,对调节收入分配、促进社会公平具有重要作用。本文从理论和实践的结合上,剖析了当前我国新农村建设中社会保障方面存在的根本性问题,同时对建设和完善符合我国国情的农村社会保障体系的发展思路进行了探讨。     

A new energy security paradigm for the twenty-first century

Conventional energy security has been focused on the depletion of natural resources, particularly oil, natural gas and coal. More recently, the link between energy security and the military has been made, focused on the defence of international oil tanker chokepoints and the free flow of oil through these trade routes. This paper considers a possible future in which, the impacts of climate change have been realized far earlier than most experts have previously expected. This has promoted a transition to cleaner energy technologies long before the depletion of fossil fuel resources. In this scenario, the peak in demand for fossil fuels occurs before the peak in supply and some nations are strongly promoting the development and deployment of clean energy technologies. Some private companies developing and deploying these technologies benefit from sudden market expansion, fuelled largely by the world's richest nations struggling to reduce their carbon footprint.In this scenario the countries of the world would fall into one of the three categories: (1) the countries willing and readily able to adjust in response to rapid and serious climate change, (2) the countries willing to adjust, but facing significant economic hardship without external assistance and protection, (3) and those countries unwilling and, perhaps to their perception at least, unable to play a part in combating climate change. In this scenario, the Western Economies will likely fall under the first category while the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China) might fall into the second category. These nations together are needed to achieve a viable, powerful, and effective formal or informal “Clean Energy Alliance”. Some countries however will probably fall into the third category. This paper considers how countries in the first two categories could respond by adjusting their foreign, trade and even military policies.If climate change is as severe and as pressing as some fear, leadership will be needed from those nations who are most capable of responding to the crisis. Within a generation, the great powers might find themselves shifting from keeping trade routes open to constraining the same trade. Severe climate change impacts could even approach the timescale of technological innovation needed to respond to this crisis. This paper proposes that our world may need new military and foreign policy options as well as new energy technology options in the years to come. Parallels are drawn between the challenge of decarbonising the global energy systems in the early twenty-first century and the ethical imperative of ending slavery in the early nineteenth century.     

中国残疾人社会保障体系框架设计

作为社会弱势群体之一,中国残疾人群的基本生存状况令人担忧,迫切需要健全的残疾人社会保障体系来维护基本权益。利用2006年中国第二次全国残疾人抽样调查数据,描述了残疾人群收入贫困、就业困难、教育、医疗服务、康复等基本需求不能得到满足的生存状况,就此提出建立“多支柱、梯度扶助”式残疾人社会保障体系的框架设计。     

长株潭地区农民工社会保障问题与对策研究

利用问卷调查、访谈等手段收集长株潭地区农民工社会保障状况的基本信息,通过对问卷进行数据分析,并结合实地调研的访谈情况,发现农民工社会保障中存在的问题和原因,探索长株潭地区农民工社会保障问题的解决对策。     

On the social structure of markets

Economic theorists have seldom discussed the social structuresbehind markets, even though market trading relies heavily onseller/buyer roles and personal relations among traders. Thispaper considers the structural basis of markets and proposesa layered approach which accommodates a wide range of competitiveand relational trade within a definition of markets that distinguishesthem from non-market exchange. Giving due regard to social structureslays bare the institutional character of markets and providesa rationale for case studies of how particular markets function.     

Institutions, education, and development: The role of entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are instrumental for structural transformation. They create and organize new firms and hire workers with a minimum level of human capital. Entrepreneurs encourage workers to invest in their own education in order to move into the modern production sector. Better institutions lead to less income diversion, which creates a greater supply of entrepreneurs, a larger demand for human capital, and faster structural transformation. Education policy alone is not as effective, although it, too, raises the number of entrepreneurs. Simulations and evidence from Brazilian states support the theory.