EMPLOYEE BENEFITS AND SOCIAL SECURITY

Future growth in employee benefits has a significant linkage with the long-range actuarial position of Social Security (OASDI). Earlier research by this author explained the sensitivity of the projected long-range OASDI deficit to the assumption about the rate of growth of fringe benefits. ¹ This paper summarizes, updates, and extends the discussion of the implications of fringe-benefit growth to include distributional effects     

SOCIAL SECURITY AND LABOR SUPPLY INCENTIVES

Many provisions of the Social Security program distort an individual's labor supply incentives. In particular, the payroll tax, the earnings test, the offsetting actuarial adjustment, and the dependence of the size of future benefits on the level of current earnings all affect the net return to extra work. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the size of the net tax rate on labor income in a variety of circumstances, taking into account all these provisions, as well as the personal income tax. We find that the Social Security Program on net in the past has provided a large subsidy to labor supply, which for many people effectively offset the personal income tax. This subsidy rate, however, has been declining steadily over time     

退休年龄、教育年限与社会保障

在本文中,我们用养老金的缴纳费率和养老金替代率代表社会保障制度,采用有限生命预期的连续时间状态代际交叠模型作为基本框架,分析了社会保障制度对消费者接受教育的年限、退休年龄、工作年限的选择、GDP增长率和利率的影响。同时,我们还分析了消费者的预期寿命对个体消费者接受教育的年限、退休年龄、工作年限的选择以及对社会保障制度的影响。     

SOCIAL SECURITY INVESTMENT POLICY AND CAPITAL FORMATION

Large recent surpluses in the social security trust fund accounts provide the potential to increase overall national saving and capital formation. However, these surpluses instead have allowed politicians to increase the non-social security deficit and government consumption.
This paper argues that investing the trust funds in private assets could bring into focus the magnitude of the non-social security deficit and force Congress to cut it. Evidence presented here indicates that the trade deficit, output, and monetary policy are systematic macroeconomic variables that affect relative asset prices. The evidence also supports arguments of Nordhaus and others that a change in trust fund investment policy could lower the trade deficit, raise output, and produce looser monetary policy, thereby increasing Tobin's a and, thus, capital formation. Investing the trust funds in private assets could increase national investment and give the baby-bust generation more capital to use in producing goods and services for themselves and for retired baby-boomers.     

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。     

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.     

RETURNS PAID TO EARLY SOCIAL SECURITY COHORTS

Previous research generally concludes that early participants in the Social Security system received a very good "deal"—better than later participants received, and much better than future participants are likely to get. However, researchers do not know the values of those deals and their distribution across individuals and groups largely because the necessary data have not been available. The study here uses the Social Security Administration's 1988 Continuous Work History Sample (CWHS) to calculate early participants' real internal rates of return to contributions. The study analyzes sex, race, household type, income, and birth cohorts and employs new Census Bureau mortality projects to forecast more accurately how life expectancies and benefit streams vary by race as well as by sex and birth cohort .
Results contribute to an understanding of how the Social Security system redistributes income. All sample groups received high real rates of return. However, the returns varied widely by household type, income level, birth cohort, and other factors. The authors calculate that persons born from 1895 to 1922 received a total transfer of £3.5 trillion, of which £1.3 trillion remained to be paid as of 1988 .     

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     

SOCIAL SECURITY REFORMS AND LABOUR FORCE PARTICIPATION OF THE ELDERLY IN JAPAN*

In the present study we examine how social security programs have affected the labour force participation of the elderly over the past 40 years in Japan. Using publicly available data, we construct incentive measures for inducing retirement, to ascertain actual changes in the generosity of the programs and to explore the impact of the reforms on the labour supply of the elderly. We show that the labour force participation of the elderly is significantly sensitive to the measures, and our counter‐historical simulations show that social security reforms since 1985 featuring reduced generosity have significantly encouraged the elderly to remain in the labour force longer.     

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。     

IDIOSYNCRATIC RISK,AGGREGATE RISK,AND THE WELFARE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL SECURITY

We ask whether a pay‐as‐you‐go financed social security system is welfare improving in an economy with idiosyncratic and aggregate risk. We show that the whole welfare benefit from insurance against both risks is greater than the sum of benefits from insurance against the isolated risks. One reason is the convexity of the welfare gain. The other reason is a direct risk interaction amplifying the utility losses from risk. Our quantitative evaluation shows that introducing a minimum pension leads to sizeable welfare gains, despite substantial crowding out. About 60% of these gains would be missing from summing up the isolated benefits.     

征地费使用方式与农村社会养老保险的实证研究

在城市化进程中,除了征地权滥用外,由于集体土地产权的模糊性使得征地补偿费如何在农民集体和个人及其他相关利益主体之间的分配难以形成公正、合理的格局。在我国社会保障实行城乡分割的二元化政策下,失地农民缺乏应有的保障。这些现象对我国社会经济正常运行以及社会稳定发展造成了不可忽视的影响。文章以杭州市拱墅区为例,对征地费使用方式与农村社会养老保险进行了实证研究,探讨了征地费的使用方式及其对农村社会养老保险的影响并提出了规范征地费的使用和管理,促进农村社会养老保险的建议。     

THE SIGNIFICANCE AND USE OF LONG-RANGE ACTUARIAL COST ESTIMATES FOR THE SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM

This paper describes the methodology underlying the actuarial cost estimates for the Social Security program and the assumptions needed therefor. With this as a background, the use to which these estimates is made in developing legislation is described, with emphasis on the current financing problems. Finally, various possible solutions to these problems are discussed. These solutions involve either increasing the income of the program or decreasing the rate of growth of its outgo. Increased income could be derived by increasing the payroll tax rates, by injecting general revenues (either directly or indirectly, such as taxing Social Security benefits and putting the proceeds in the trust funds or financing part of all of the Hospital Insurance program from general revenues and moving some of its payroll tax rate to the cash-benefits program), or by covering government employees who are not now covered. The growth of outgo could be reduced by changes in the cost-of-living adjustments of benefits, by gradually increasing the normal retirement age, or by gradually decreasing the relative benefit level     

SOCIAL SECURITY DEPENDENT BENEFITS,NET PAYROLL TAX,AND MARRIED WOMEN'S LABOR SUPPLY

This paper examines how Social Security dependent benefits impact the labor supply of married women aged 25–54. Specifically, I investigate whether the decrease in the rate of return to women's work discourages them from participating in the labor force by simulating expected net payroll tax rates and dependent benefits. Dependent benefits may reduce the net return to women's work, as they usually pay the full payroll tax without receiving marginal benefits for additional earnings if they claim benefits based on their husbands' earnings records. The results show that high net payroll tax rates reduce married women's work incentives, particularly those near retirement age. (JEL H24, H55, J22)     

SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM IN CHINA: THE CASE OF OLD-AGE INSURANCE

The social security system in the People's Republic of China is experiencing dramatic changes. This paper examines the characteristics of the pre-reform social security system in the People's Republic of China with respect to the old-age insurance, discusses and comments on the recent efforts towards old-age insurance reform, and proposes recommendations for the current reform, such as raising the official retirement ages, changing funding system, and investing pension funds to appreciate their values.     

老龄化、社保缴费与企业诞生*

本文分析了我国不同经济区域老龄化和老年抚养比的变化轨迹,发现经济发达地区老龄化出现下降趋势。测算不同省份企业的最大社保缴费能力和缴费负担,发现我国企业的社保缴费负担过重。采用负二项回归模型,实证分析社保缴费对不同省份、不同行业企业成立数量的影响,发现社保缴费能力对企业成立数量有正向影响,社保缴费负担则有负向影响,统计显著但影响力较小。在上述分析基础上,本文提出了合理划分国家、企业、个人三方社保负担的政策建议。     

城乡分割、区域分割与流动人口 社会保障缺失*

基于大规模的流动人口调查数据,本文研究了城乡分割和区域分割对城市外来流动人口社会保障的影响。利用变量法的IVProbit模型进行回归估计,尝试解决劳动者的工资与参加社会保险之间的内生性问题。研究结果发现：第一,外来流动人口参加社会保险存在严重的城乡分割和区域分割效应;第二,区域分割效应大于城乡分割效应;第三,若不解决工资与社会保险参保之间的内生性问题,则将低估外来流动人口参加社会保险的城乡分割效应和区域分割效应。     

社保基金投资资本市场的收益-风险研究

资本市场为社保基金保值增值提供了基本工具。对1993—2006年中国资本市场运行的实证研究表明,作为风险量度的投资组合标准差每增加1%,可以获得0.221%的预期收益。尽管中国股票市场风险较大,但是,社保基金一定程度地参与股票市场,不仅可以享受经济增长的红利,而且可以取得投资组合分散风险的结果。     

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.