Postponing retirement: the political effect of aging

Conventional economic wisdom suggests that because of the aging process, social security systems will have to be retrenched. In particular, retirement age will have to be largely increased. Yet, is this policy measure feasible in OECD countries? Since the answer belongs mainly to the realm of politics, I evaluate the political feasibility of postponing retirement under aging in France, Italy, the UK, and the US. Simulations for the year 2050 steady state demographic, economic and political scenario suggest that retirement age will be postponed in all countries, while the social security contribution rate will rise in all countries, but Italy. The political support for increasing the retirement age stems mainly from the negative income effect induced by aging, which reduces the profitability of the existing social security system, and thus the individuals' net social security wealth.     

Social security is NOT a substitute for annuity markets

Common wisdom suggests that a fully-funded actuarially fair social security system should increase welfare when households face longevity risk and annuity markets are missing. This wisdom is based on the observation that social security pays benefits as life annuities and therefore appears to complete the market. However, we argue that common wisdom is based on a benefit-only analysis that ignores a fundamental cost—social security crowds out the bequests that households leave (and receive) in general equilibrium. We conduct a general equilibrium cost-benefit analysis of the longevity insurance role of social security, and we show that under certain conditions this decline in bequest income offsets any possible gains from access to a public annuity pool. We abstract from distortions to national income and factor prices to show that the equilibrium bequest channel is all that is needed to reach this conclusion.     

QUANTIFYING THE LAFFER CURVE ON THE CONTINUED ACTIVITY TAX IN A DYNASTIC FRAMEWORK*

It is argued that the tax on continued activity should be removed by implementing actuarially fair schemes. However, these schemes cannot fund the expected Social Security (SS) deficit. This article proposes to give individuals a fraction of the actuarially fair incentives in the case of postponed retirement. SS faces a trade‐off between giving enough incentives to make individuals delay retirement and giving little increase in pensions in order to help finance its expected deficit. This trade‐off is captured by a Laffer curve. Finally, when the SS system aims to maximize welfare, the optimal tax on postponed retirement is still strictly positive.     

“新农保”的福利效应与地方政府信任*

“新农保”的福利效应对提升政府信任和政府治理能力具有重要影响。本文采用中国家庭追踪调查数据（CFPS），从参保农民对地方干部信任的角度，实证分析了新农保这一公共政策实施对农村居民对地方政府信任的影响。研究结果表明：相较于非参保组，新农保明显提升了参保居民的政府信任；在考虑了遗漏变量、自选择等内生性问题后，这一结论依然稳健。异质性分析表明，新农保显著提升了中低收入家庭以及中西部地区参保组的政府信任水平。进一步，本文从“物质福利效应”“社交福利效应”和“心理福利效应”的角度考察了新农保福利效应增进地方政府信任的途径，结果表明，参保初期，新农保政策带来的物质福利增加、社交福利改善和心理福利满足均显著提高了参保居民对地方政府的信任。但从参保的长期效应来看，新农保的福利效应对政府信任的影响从长期看并不显著，这可能是由新农保的实际保障水平和人们预期的保障水平之间的差距所导致的。     

我国社会保障水平对城乡收入差距的影响

从理论上说,社会保障制度负有调节收入差距的制度使命,西方福利国家的发展实践也证明了这点。但在我国,由于社会保障制度本身的不公平,一直被质疑对收入分配存在"逆向调节"效应。运用Pooled OLS模型,借助于2007-2011年的省级面板数据,重新检验了新时期我国社会保障水平对城乡收入差距的影响。财政社会保障水平的效应不显著,而社会保障水平的正效应已经开始显现。说明随着我国城镇社会保障制度的扩面(农民工是主要受益者)以及农村社会保障制度建设的全面启动,我国社会保障制度正向调节城乡收入差距的"时间窗口"已经出现。     

Life expectancy, human capital, social security and growth

We analyze the effects of changes in the mortality rate upon life expectancy, education, retirement age, human capital and growth in the presence of social security. We build a vintage growth, overlapping generations model in which individuals choose the length of education and the age of retirement, and where unfunded social security pensions depend on workers' past contributions. Social security has a positive effect on education, but pension benefits favor reductions in retirement age. The net effect is that starting from a benchmark case, higher life expectancies give rise to lower per capita GDP growth in the presence of social security as the share of the active population is reduced. In addition, higher social security contribution rates reduce the growth rate of per capita GDP.     

The Dynamic Effects of Social Security on Individual Consumption, Wealth and Welfare

This paper presents a theoretical investigation of the dynamic effects of social security on individual consumption, wealth and welfare. The framework of analysis is Yaari's (1965) life–cycle model of saving with uncertain lifetime and borrowing constraint. A simple uniform social security system as well as an actuarially fair and fully funded social security system is considered. The presence of terminal wealth depletion is shown to play a pivotal role not only in the derivation of the results but also in the outcome of the analysis.     

Private,Social, and Self‐Insurance for Long‐Term Care in the Presence of Family Help

We study the political determination of the level of social long‐term care insurance when voters can top up with private insurance, saving and family help. Agents differ in income, probability of becoming dependent and of receiving family help, and amount of family help received. Social insurance redistributes across income and risk levels, while private insurance is actuarially fair. The income‐to‐dependency probability ratio of agents determines whether they prefer social or private insurance. Family support crowds out the demand for both social and, especially, private insurance, as strong prospects of family help drive the demand for private insurance to zero. The availability of private insurance decreases the demand for social insurance but need not decrease its majority‐chosen level. A majority of voters would oppose banning private insurance.     

农业保险制度对土地利用效应的经济学分析

本文通过建立农业生产局部均衡模型研究发现,农业保险制度的建立明显导致了粗放边际扩张,完全分开均衡精算公平农业保险制度不会对土地使用或其他任何生产决定造成影响.但是,在较现实的混同均衡精算公平农业保险制度下,农户将会把无农业保险时闲置的、边际质量更低劣的土地投入生产,而且农业保险补贴会进一步刺激农业生产在劣质土地上的粗放边际扩张并可能导致环境退化的问题.这对研究我国农业保险制度选择及其补贴政策对环境的影响具有一定的参考价值.     

试论我国劳动力转移对农村经济发展影响

“三农”问题是当前的重中之重,提高农民收入的主要方法之一是将大量滞留在农村富余劳动力有效转移。农业劳动力转移,可以降低农业生产总成本,增加农民收入,发展农村经济,也在一定程度上提高了劳动力自身的素质。但由于我国目前法律制度的不完善,社会保障体系不健全,导致农村劳动力转移过程中出现许多阻碍经济发展和社会不公平现象。解决这些问题,对促进农村经济发展,构建社会主义和谐社会具有重要意义。     

Partial retirement and the earnings test

This paper studies the effects of the earnings test on retirement behavior. The earnings tests of most social security systems tax post0retirement earnings at a relatively high level and do not lead to actuarially fair increases in futere benefits. This results in discouragement of partial retirement. The paper shows that a reduction in the earnings test's tax rate is likely to increase part-time work, and that, in special cases, the increase in work effort may even lead to a reduction in the net transfer from social security to the individual.I wish to thank the Institute of Industrial Relations at UC Berkeley for its hospitality and support. This research has been financed by the Austrian Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung. I am indebted to J. K. Brunner, W. T. Dickens, J. Falkinger, E. Lazear, T. Sikor, B.-A. Wickström, R. Winter-Ebmer, and two referees for comments on an earlier draft.     

Contemporary Issues in the Ongoing Reform of the Australian Retirement Income System

The development of a sound and sustainable retirement income system is currently an important social, political and economic issue around the world as many countries face a range of pressures including an ageing population, low national saving levels, maturing Social Security programs and changing employment patterns. As a result of these pressures, the World Bank has advocated a three-pillar system which is broadly reflected in the current Australian arrangements. However, further reform is planned in Australia. The 1995–96 Federal Budget announced a proposal to introduce compulsory minimum employee contributions of 3 per cent of earnings, together with a matching income-tested government contribution. The proposal for government contributions is analysed in this article and an alternative approach is proposed. The important related issues of the taxation of superannuation and the integration between superannuation and the government-funded age pension are also reviewed. As a result, recommendations for change are made to encourage a stable long-term structure that provides retirement incomes in a simple, affordable and fair manner.     

Means-Tested Public Assistance and the Demand for State Lottery Tickets

Empirical evidence suggests that the poor spend a larger fraction of their income on gambling than the well to do. This paper shows that “means tests” for public assistance eligibility could supply part of the explanation. Income support programs can distort private budget sets, conceivably leading to risk-taking behavior on the part of rational agents with standard, concave utility functions. Latter sections of the paper employ a calibrated life-cycle saving model to study resulting demands for actuarially fair lotteries numerically. The analysis demonstrates that allowing lotteries can simplify model-related computations a great deal.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: E21, D91, I38.     

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。     

Optimal Decisions on Pension Plans in the Presence of Information Costs and Financial Literacy

Pension reforms are on the political agenda of many countries. Such reforms imply an increasing responsibility on individuals’ side in building an efficient portfolio for retirement. In this paper, we provide a model describing workers’ choices on the allocation of retirement savings in presence of (1) mandatory pension contribution; (2) different pension plans; and (3) information costs and financial literacy investment decisions. In particular, we characterize the results from both a positive and normative standpoint, by highlighting the determinants of individuals’ choice, with special focus on information costs, on the role of income and preferences, and by characterizing the optimal contribution rate to mandatory complementary pension plans. We also introduce endogenous financial literacy and analyze how its optimal level is determined and how it affects the decisions on pension plans.     

Positive arithmetic of the welfare state

This paper argues that social security enjoys wider political support than other welfare programs because: (i) retirees constitute the most homogeneous voting group, and (ii) the intragenerational redistribution component of social security induces low-income young to support this system. In a dynamically efficient overlapping generation economy with earnings heterogeneity, we show that, for sufficient income inequality and enough elderly in the population, a welfare system composed of a within-cohort redistribution scheme and an unfunded social security system represents the political equilibrium of a two-dimensional majoritarian election. Social security is sustained by retirees and low-income young; while intragenerational redistribution by low-income young. Unlike unidimensional voting model, our model suggests that to assess how changes in inequality affect the welfare state, the income distribution should be decomposed by age groups.     

Birth,death and taxes

"This paper analyzes the effects of lump-sum tax policy in an overlapping generations model in which consumers have uncertain longevity. It extends previous analyses by considering the case in which private insurance arrangements are actuarially unfair. In addition, it considers the polar case of actuarially fair insurance and the polar case of no insurance. A general condition for debt neutrality is derived. This condition depends explicitly on the degree of actuarial unfairness in insurance and on the extent to which parents care about the utility of their children."     

Perspectives on Australian Retirement Incomes

With important developments over the past two decades in Australian retirement income policy, projected future outcomes—for the public purse, for the national economy and for the future retired—have received considerable attention. This focus on the future should not, however, cause us to lose sight of the present. While the major changes in retirement income policy outcomes will not occur for some decades, the picture for current and recent cohorts of retired people is not static. This article begins with an account of the important policy developments since the 1980s in the Australian retirement income arena—the Australian retirement income system still differs radically from that in most other countries, in relying heavily on a means‐tested income maintenance system, rather than on social insurance. The outcomes for current and recent cohorts of retired people are then examined from two perspectives. The first perspective is an examination of the incomes of the aged in the mid 1990s and of trends over the 1980s and 1990s—including consideration of changes in the level, composition and distribution of aged incomes. The second perspective is an international comparison of the incomes of the aged.     

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.     

Old-age benefits and retirement decisions of rural elderly in Brazil

I estimate the impact of social security benefits on retirement decisions of rural workers by studying changes in the rules governing old-age benefits for rural workers in Brazil. I focus on a reform implemented in 1991, which reduced the minimum eligibility age, increased benefits, and extended the program to non-heads of households. Because those benefits come with no strings attached — they are not means or retirement tested — any behavioral response is a pure income effect. The main finding of the paper is that access to old-age benefits is a strong determinant of retirement of rural workers in Brazil: receiving old-age benefits increases the probability of not working by about thirty-eight percentage points and reduces total hours per week by 22½ h.