Do pensions foster education? An empirical perspective

The paper examines the effect of population ageing on public education spending. On the one hand, ageing is expected to have a negative effect on education, as an increasing number of retirees results in ‘intergenerational conflict’ and, hence, the condemnation of education expenditure. On the other hand, ageing, in combination with pay-as-you-go pension systems, offers incentives for the working-age generation to invest in the public education of the young in order to ‘reap’ the benefits (that is, higher income tax/contributions) of their greater future productivity. Empirical evidence derived from the application of a fixed effects approach to panel data for OECD countries shows that the increasing share of elderly people has a non-linear effect on education spending. This indicates a certain degree of intergenerational conflict. Nevertheless, we find that future population ageing, which reinforces the mechanism linking public education and pensions, reflects positively on education expenditure. Furthermore, by disaggregating total education expenditure by educational levels, we observe that this effect is led by levels of non-compulsory education, probably as a reflection of the direct connection to labor productivity.     

Operations of a Pension Fund after the Asian Crisis: The Thai Experience*

During and after the Asian crisis, institutional investors and pension funds in Asian financial markets have been confronted with a number of difficulties effecting their performance and the way they carry out their role within the national pension system. We analyze these problems by comparing the actual investment policy of an institutional investor with an optimal investment strategy derived from the insights of modern portfolio theory. We also analyze whether the organizational set‐up of a pension fund allows it to adequately perform its role within the pension system. As an example, we examine the operations of the Thai Government Pension Fund (GPF). We find that allowing international investments and reducing restrictions on equity investments while lowering the implicit requirements for investments in government debt would allow the GPF to further diversify its investment risk and to increase its risk‐adjusted return. We also show that some changes in the governance structure of the GPF would lower the occurrence of conflicts of interest for the management and increase the efficiency of the GPF operations.     

Dividend reinvestment plans: An empirical analysis

This study examines the effect of initiating discount and no discount dividend reinvestment plans on shareholder wealth. The results show a negative response to DRP announcements, which is significantly smaller than that found in studies of new equity offerings. These results are consistent with the Scholes and Wolfson (1989) hypothesis that managers in need of equity capital use DRPs to mitigate the adverse stock price effects of new equity issue announcements. Furthermore, there is a significant difference in the price response of discount and no discount DRPs for industrial firms. This result is supportive of the signaling potential of discount DRPs. Supportive evidence is also found in the analysis of firm characteristics for industrial firms.     

Government Deficit, Public Investment, and Public Capital in the Transition to an Aging Japan

This paper examines the effects of government deficits, public investment, and public capital on welfare in the transition to an aging Japan by applying a simulated general equilibrium growth model. One of the main results of this paper is that targeting only high economic growth would mislead us as to economic policies, and that a policy to reduce future government deficits is most preferable for almost all generations, even though a cut in future deficits must be followed by a decrease in public investment, thus a decrease in public capital in the future. J. Japan. Int. Econ., December 2002, 16(4), pp. 462–491. Faculty of Economics, Shiga University, Japan; and Management School, Imperial College, United Kingdom. © 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: H55, H54, H62, C68, J10.     

Consistency of UK Pension Fund Investment Performance

Transition matrix techniques are used to relate the past and present performance of pension fund portfolios. In particular, funds are ranked to study the tendency of portfolios to remain in the same quartile of the ranking as they were in the previous period. For raw returns, funds in both of the top quartiles are found to be more likely to remain in the same quartile than would be expected by chance. This result can be taken as limited evidence for the consistency of performance. Similar systemic effects are observed on a risk-adjusted basis. There appears to be clear evidence that some fund managers can offer a degree of consistent good performance.     

养老基金筹集模式的实证分析

当前的养老制度改革是关注的焦点。本文首先将从介绍现存的筹集模式入手,试图换个角度来思考在人口老龄化背景下的我国养老金基金制度,实证分析模式选择对于缴费率等的影响,并基于此,讨论未来改革的方向。     

企业年金入市对我国资本市场的影响

本文主要论述了企业年金入市时我国资本市场的影响,包括:为资本市场的发展提供长期而稳定的资金来源、促进 资本市场的稳定以及整合各类金融机构。     

养老保险全国统筹、渐进式延迟退休与基金可持续

基于精算模型分析养老金全国统筹与渐进式延迟退休年龄政策对养老保险基金可持续性的影响,结果显示：全国统筹政策在短期使财政负担下降100%,长期内不能有效降低财政负担。在此基础上实施“女先男后”和“男女同步”渐进式延迟退休年龄政策能分别使养老保险累计财政负担降低6.68%和34.36%。为有效减轻养老保险基金支付压力和财政负担,应完善全国统筹政策,并尽快出台渐进式延迟退休年龄方案。     

遗产动机与公共养老保险制度的效应分析

本文运用内生增长模型与世代重叠模型的结合分析，试图从理论上来探讨在考虑人们遗产动机的情况下，公共养老保险制度对于经济增长率和社会福利（social welfare）所产生的效应。在分析中，基金积累式养老保险制度的中立性的特征再次得以确认；同时，我们还发现在一定条件下，现收现付方式养老保险制度也可能保持中立性，即当具有遗产动机的个人对于今后养老保险制度拥有完全信息时，个人会将足够的遗产留与后代，使得后代在养老保险费上的负担与获取的遗产相抵，从而使得各代人消费路径以及资本积累路径不发生变化，因此，养老保险制度的建立也不会对经济增长率和社会福利水平产生影响。     

国有企业资金不足的养老金债务问题研究

中国国有企业由于养老金资金不足的债务问题一直存在,导致公共养老基金的财政稳定性处于一种危险状态.代际核算是评估财政政策对两代之间的利益分配效果的长期影响的一种有效手段,其现值技术可客观测试养老基金的偿付能力和弥补预期养老金债务的隐含风险.对在香港上市的国有企业养老金缴付情况的模拟分析,识别了代际间转移的规模,对于养老金计划财务报告、可选择的政策调整和受影响的股东群体等都具有重要的启示.