[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/diw/diwwpp/dp254.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why Funding Is not a Solution to the "Social Security Crisis"

Author

Listed:
  • Friedrich Breyer
Abstract
It is now a commonplace that the unfunded public pension systems of many OECD countries will run into severe financing problems in the coming decades due to a dramatically increasing pensioner/worker ratio. While this diagnosis is completely undisputed, there is still a vigorous debate on the appropriate therapy. In this debate, a number of proposals have been brought forward in particular in the last five years, which mainly consist in a (partial) transition to a funded pension system. Because such a transition is not a Pareto improvement, it is necessary to ask what can be the policy target that justifies such a redistributive move? The present paper tries to examine this question by identifying seven fallacies that are commonly made by advocates of such a transition. Es ist heute unbestritten, dass die umlagefinanzierten staatlichen Rentensysteme in den meisten OECD.Ländern in den kommenden Jahrzehnten wegen der dramatisch steigenden Alterslastquote schwerwiegende finanzielle Probleme bekommen werden. Dennoch gibt es eine intensive Debatte über die angemessene Therapie. Gerade in den letzten Jahren haben Vorschläge zugenommen, die auf einen (teilweisen) Übergang zur Kapitaldeckung hinauslaufen. Da ein solcher Übergang bekanntlich keine Pareto-Verbesserung bewirkt, muss man fragen, durch welche Zielsetzungen er gerechtfertigt werden könnte. Die vorliegende Arbeit geht dieser Frage nach und identifiziert sieben Trugschlüsse, die von Anhängern eines solchen Übergangs häufig begangen werden.

Suggested Citation

  • Friedrich Breyer, 2001. "Why Funding Is not a Solution to the "Social Security Crisis"," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 254, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp254
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.38607.de/dp254.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Feldstein, Martin, 1996. "The Missing Piece in Policy Analysis: Social Security Reform," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 1-14, May.
    2. Mathias Kifman & Dirk Schindler, 2001. "Smoothing the Implicit Tax Rate in a Pay-as-you-go Pension System," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 57(3), pages 261-283, May.
    3. Homburg, Stefan, 2000. "Compulsory savings in the welfare state," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 233-239, August.
    4. Homburg, Stefan, 1997. "Old-age Pension Systems: A Theoretical Evaluation," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 233-246.
    5. repec:bla:kyklos:v:40:y:1987:i:4:p:529-47 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Martin Feldstein & Andrew Samwick, 1998. "The Transition Path in Privatizing Social Security," NBER Chapters, in: Privatizing Social Security, pages 215-264, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Friedrich Breyer & J.‐Matthias Graf V. D. Schulenburg**, 1987. "Voting on Social Security: The Family as Decision‐Making Unit," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 529-547, November.
    8. Brunner, Johann K., 1996. "Transition from a pay-as-you-go to a fully funded pension system: The case of differing individuals and intragenerational fairness," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 131-146, April.
    9. Breyer, Friedrich & von der Schulenburg, J-Matthias Graf, 1990. "Family Ties and Social Security in a Democracy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 67(2), pages 155-167, November.
    10. Feldstein, Martin & Liebman, Jeffrey B., 2002. "Social security," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 32, pages 2245-2324, Elsevier.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Breyer, Friedrich & Kifmann, Mathias, 2002. "Incentives to retire later – a solution to the social security crisis?," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(2), pages 111-130, July.
    2. Robert Stelter, 2016. "Fertility and health insurance types in Germany," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2016021, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    3. Corneo, Giacomo & Keese, Matthias & Schröder, Carsten, 2008. "Can governments boost voluntary retirement savings via tax incentives and subsidies? A German case study for low-income households," Economics Working Papers 2008-18, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
    4. Oksanen, Heikki, 2003. "A nyugdíjreformtervek a jóléti államokban - öregedő népesség esetén [Pension-reform blueprints for welfare states under ageing populations]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(7), pages 654-670.
    5. Rodrigo Cerda, 2005. "On social security financial crisis," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 18(3), pages 509-517, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marko Köthenbürger & Panu Poutvaara, 2002. "Social Security Reform and Intergenerational Trade: Is there Scope for a Pareto-Improvement?," CESifo Working Paper Series 795, CESifo.
    2. Martin Feldstein, 1997. "Transition to a Fully Funded Pension System: Five Economic Issues," NBER Working Papers 6149, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. David Miles & Ales Cerny, 2001. "Risk, Return and Portfolio Allocation under Alternative Pension Arrangements with Imperfect Financial Markets," CESifo Working Paper Series 441, CESifo.
    4. Assar Lindbeck & Mats Persson, 2003. "The Gains from Pension Reform," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 74-112, March.
    5. Shiller, Robert J., 1999. "Social security and institutions for intergenerational, intragenerational, and international risk-sharing," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 165-204, June.
    6. David K. Miles, 2000. "Funded and Unfunded Pension Schemes: Risk, Return and Welfare," CESifo Working Paper Series 239, CESifo.
    7. Miles, David & Cerny, Ales, 2001. "Risk Return and Portfolio Allocation under Alternative Pension Systems with Imperfect Financial Markets," CEPR Discussion Papers 2779, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Sergio Cesaratto, 2002. "The Economics of Pensions: A non-conventional approach," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(2), pages 149-177.
    9. Friedrich Breyer, 2000. "Kapitaldeckungs‐ versus Umlageverfahren," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 1(4), pages 383-405, November.
    10. Damjanovic, Tatiana, 2003. "The possibility of Pareto-Improving Pension Reform: More Arguments," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2003 53, Royal Economic Society.
    11. Fehr, Hans, 1999. "Welfare Effects of Dynamic Tax Reforms," Beiträge zur Finanzwissenschaft, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, edition 1, volume 5, number urn:isbn:9783161470165, September.
    12. Martin Feldstein & Elena Ranguelova, 1998. "Individual Risk and Intergenerational Risk Sharing in an Investment-Based Social Security Program," NBER Working Papers 6839, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Kent Smetters, 2005. "Social Security Privatization with Elastic Labor Supply and Second-Best Taxes," Working Papers wp092, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    14. Hans-Werner Sinn, 2000. "Why a Funded Pension System is Needed and Why It is Not Needed," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 7(4), pages 389-410, August.
    15. Lindbeck, Assar & Persson, Mats, 2000. "What Are the Gains from Pension Reform?," Working Paper Series 535, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    16. Hirte, Georg, 2001. "Pension Policies for an Aging Society," Beiträge zur Finanzwissenschaft, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, edition 1, volume 14, number urn:isbn:9783161475399, September.
    17. Georg Hirte, 2003. "The Political Feasibility of Privatizing Old‐Age Insurance," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 50(4), pages 507-525, September.
    18. Miles, David, 2000. "Funded and Unfunded Pensions: Risk, Return and Welfare," CEPR Discussion Papers 2369, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. John Geanakoplos & Olivia S. Mitchell & Stephen P. Zeldes, "undated". "Social Security Money's Worth," Pension Research Council Working Papers 97-20, Wharton School Pension Research Council, University of Pennsylvania.
    20. Martin Feldstein & Elena Ranguelova & Andrew Samwick, 2001. "The Transition to Investment-Based Social Security When Portfolio Returns and Capital Profitability Are Uncertain," NBER Chapters, in: Risk Aspects of Investment-Based Social Security Reform, pages 41-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp254. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bibliothek (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/diwbede.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.