中国社会保障体制改革:回顾与前瞻

经过20余年的探索和改革,中国社会保障体系的总体框架已经初步形成。下一步改革的重点主要是养老、医疗和失业保险等项制度,面临的问题将更为棘手,也是绕不过去的,必须分别拿出对策。     

中国社会保险制度架构的缺陷

中国在制度惠及面方面,社会保险大大低于劳动保险。因为劳动保险是综合性制度安排,社会保险制度则是分险种而设定。事实上,除了养老和失业保险两个险种外,其他险种的覆盖面还很低。社会保险分险种进行制度安排所产生的一个后果是:综合缴费率过高,不仅抬高了制度门槛,而且不利于提高企业的竞争力,使社会保险覆盖面既扩不大,也扩不得。     

被征地农民社会保障筹资模式选择

从基金收支平衡能力来看,个人账户和社会统筹通道结合型政府承担的责任最小,收支平衡能力很强;而社会统筹型收支平衡受工资增长率和利率影响很大,在目前经济形势下,将会面临巨大的资金缺口;完全个人账户型收支平衡能力很强,政府财政投入适当,保障水平较高,是被征地农民社会保障最佳筹资模式。     

我国实施社会保险费改税的障碍化解

我国实施费改税的主要障碍,涉及形式上的障碍和实质性的障碍。通过理论分析,结合对部分地区的调研,发现这些障碍要么不成立,要么可以规避。因此,开征社会保障税是可行的。费改税的形式障碍不能成立,而对于实质性障碍,可以通过按照个人账户规模实施税收返还、暂时不将城乡居民纳入征税对象、暂时维持“二元征收”体制和增强参保者对制度的预期等方法加以规避。     

我国农户行为特殊性与最优社会保障规模

社会保障规模的设定目标在于使经济中个体的福利水平不受到风险冲击的影响。在中国当前经济环境下,农户经营和消费等决策行为的现实特殊性导致了标准最优社会保障规模理论的结论不再适用。为保障农户长期福利水平最大,当前我国农村小农经济地区需要比城市产业化经济更大规模的社会保障制度。其中的逻辑在于农户自我经营性特征导致了农户对于风险厌恶的增加,并且生产经营预付资金使得从负向冲击中恢复的困难更大,同时借贷约束更加严重;而为人力资本储蓄动机使得从负向冲击中恢复所付出的成本更高。这些结果都导致增加社会保障规模能够极大地提高经济中个体的福利水平。     

我国农民工养老保障制度安排及其创新

目前,我国农民工养老保障基本上仍处于低保障状态,其原因主要在于没有形成全国统一层面的农民工养老保障制度安排,致使各地政策之间缺乏衔接,制度运行绩效较低。因此,农民工养老保障制度的构建应该坚持灵活性原则,同时兼顾效率与公平。应建立全国层面的可转移、可持续、完全积累且富有弹性的新型农民工养老保障制度,为今后实现城乡养老保障的对接创造一个良好的制度平台。     

西部地区新型农村社会养老 保险制度水平的评估

本文结合西部地区新农保试点的实际情况,通过对新农保缴费水平、待遇水平、补贴水平的评估,发现受缴费档次和缴费年限限制,西部地区新农保缴费水平较低、政府补贴呈现逆向激励,加之基金保值增值风险较大,新农保待遇水平受限。鉴于此,本文立足政府与市场边界的角度,从提高缴费水平、区分养老层次、提高替代率和建立待遇调整的长效机制等方面着手,为西部地区新农保制度可持续发展提出政策建议。     

OPTIMAL FISCAL POLICY IN THE DESIGN OF SOCIAL SECURITY REFORMS*

The quantitative literature has documented that a privatization of the social security system generates large long‐run welfare gains at the cost of welfare losses for transition generations. In this article, we maximize over the entire policy space, following the optimal fiscal policy approach. The resulting allocation, by construction, lies on the constrained Pareto frontier. We find that the optimal design of reforms exhibits sizeable welfare gains arising from a reduction in labor supply distortions. In contrast, the welfare gains coming from the reduction of savings distortions are relatively small.     

THE ESTIMATION OF THE INCIDENCE OF EMPLOYER CONTRIBUTIONS TO SOCIAL SECURITY IN JAPAN*

The present paper estimates the incidence of the employer portion of social security contributions in Japan. One of the purposes of the paper is to examine whether the employer portion is shifted entirely or partly in many industrialized countries. The paper concludes, based on our estimation method, that there is very little apparent backwards shifting on to employees and, therefore, employers bear nearly all of their portion of social security contributions. Firms in Japan could use their contributions to social security for other purposes to reduce the financial burden on firms.     

THE ECONOMICS OF SOCIAL SENTIMENTS: THE CASE OF ENVY

The widespread externality produced by the sentiment of envy is modelled in this paper. We show its specific structural properties, the conditions of its existence, the various reasons for its normative relevance, the basic tool of its analysis ("envy-free preferences") and its crucial relation with the property of equality of liberty ("equity"). We then show that the envy externality respects the efficiency of classical allocative processes in the relevant conditions (competitive markets with not too unequal incomes, cases with indivisibilities, equal-freedom individual choices, etc.). We in particular derive conditions of consistency between efficiency and the vanishing of the envy externality, as well as the effects of actual envy on "divide and choose" processes, preferences to reassignment, multidimensional maximin, "egalitarian equivalence", degrees of envy in society and the rationality of choices.     

我国寿险业的效率研究

在寿险业市场全面对外开放以及全球金融危机的双重压力下,我国寿险业正面临着如何提升效率、维持竞争力的严峻考验。研究表明,提高财务杠杆率、扩张市场占有率是提升寿险企业经营效率的重要途径。由于股权属性在不同资源投入效率上各具优势,且企业成立年数对企业效率没有显著影响,使国内寿险企业在对外竞争中并不处劣势。     

PROVIDING INCOME SECURITY TO THE ELDERLY: THE ROLE OF PROGRAMS OTHER THAN SOCIAL SECURITY

Social Security retirement benefits have had a dramatic effect on the elderly's economic well-being over the last four decades. Many other facets of federal law have also enhanced the elderly's income security and should not be overlooked, however. Today, the elderly receive income from an amalgam of publicly and privately organized programs and individual provisions. The primary goal of these programs is to provide adequate income to the elderly. While all the major components of this loosely configured system, as we know it now, have evolved in the last 45 years, they have not developed at the same rate. It is important to understand this point because the relative role of the various income sources for future groups of the elderly will be somewhat different than for current ones     

A REAPPRAISAL OF THE INCIDENCE OF EMPLOYER CONTRIBUTIONS TO SOCIAL SECURITY IN JAPAN

This paper reappraises Tachibanaki and Yokoyama (2008)—an empirical analysis indicating no apparent backward shifting of employer social insurance contributions—by modifying their empirical strategy. First, we control for a spurious positive correlation between wages and employers' contribution rates by trend variables. Second, we utilize a cross‐sectional variation in the contribution rate of workers' compensation insurance. Third, we exclude two industries from our sample to remove sampling errors in wages. Our results indicate that the social insurance burden shifts back onto employees to some extent, contrary to Tachibanaki and Yokoyama (2008). Our finding is consistent with other existing studies.     

SOCIAL SECURITY AND THE INTRAGENERATIONAL REDISTRIBUTION OF LIFETIME INCOME IN JAPAN*

We investigate how social security redistributes lifetime income within the same generation in Japan, based on data from the micro data. The progressivity of Japan's state pension programme appears to be much more limited on a lifetime basis than on an annual basis. Given an ageing population, replacing the current Pay As You Go system with a simple one that consists of a flat benefit and a wage‐proportional premium, and has no maximum contribution, can be desirable in terms of both efficiency and intragenerational equity. The redistributive effects of income tax and consumption tax to finance the benefit are also examined.     

DISENTANGLING THE ANNUITY FROM THE REDISTRIBUTIVE ASPECTS OF SOCIAL SECURITY IN THE UNITED STATES*

In the United States, the life-cycle relationship between initial Social Security contributions and subsequent benefits causes the effect of Social Security on income distribution to be overestimated in a single-period analytical framework. By separating the annuity from the redistributive aspects of Social Security we provide a life-cycle framework for measuring its net effect on redistribution. To this point in its history, we find all income classes have received positive net life-cycle income transfers and, in an absolute sense, upper-income groups have done at least as well as lower-income groups. This suggests a reason for the near-universal support of Social Security by past generations, as well as the controversy which now surrounds it. As it becomes apparent to younger cohorts of taxpayers that many of them will be net losers, it is inevitable that Social Security will be subject to the same controversy as other welfare programs which attempt to redistribute income.     

REFORM OF THE DEPOSIT INSURANCE SYSTEM: AN APPRAISAL OF THE FHLBB AND FDIC STUDIES

This paper presents an appraisal of the studies of the deposit insurance system submitted to Congress by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Home Loan Bank Board in compliance with the Garn-St. German legislation of 1982. The purpose of these studies was to assess the current structure of the deposit insurance system in light of the changes in the regulation of depository institutions mandated in recent legislation
Many observers of the financial system believe that, as a result of recent regulatory changes, the deposit insurance agencies do not have sufficient power to control risk-taking of insured institutions. These two reports present an assessment of mechanism which could be used to limit the risk of the deposit insurance agencies
The emphasis in both reports is on ways in which the amount of market discipline applied to insured institutions could be increased. Both reports identify essentially three ways in which this might be accomplished. First, risk-adjusted deposit insurance prices might be employed. Second, the volume of uninsured creditors might be increased, either through changes in limits of insurance coverage or through imposition of requirements for use of subordinated debt. Third, the current public deposit insurance system might be partially supplanted by one that is private. This paper evaluates the merits of each of these proposals and compares the positions taken by the FHLBB and the FDIC on the issues     

THE USEFULNESS OF IMPERFECT ELECTIONS: THE CASE OF VILLAGE ELECTIONS IN RURAL CHINA

Using a sample of rural Chinese villages, which have recently been the subject of democratic reforms, we look for relationships between marginal changes in the democratic process and marginal changes in economic outcomes. We find that even very poorly conducted elections can have large incentive effects. That is, even corruptible elections provide leaders with strong incentives to act in the interests of their constituents. Our findings also allow us to rank the importance of four possible election reforms, which have attracted the attention of international observers and academic researchers.