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Guaranteeing Individual Accounts

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  • Marie-Eve Lachance
  • Olivia S. Mitchell

Abstract

Global aging is prompting workers and taxpayers everywhere to recognize their vulnerability to the inherent uncertainty of unfunded social-security systems. This has generated an international wave of social-security reforms over the last two decades, prompting more than 20 countries to establish Individual Account (IA) plans. In the United States, the idea of Individual Accounts has attracted recent interest with the release of the Final Report of the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security (CSSS): here, voluntary individual accounts were proposed as a key element of a reformed national old-age system (see Commission to Strengthen Social Security, 2001; John F. Cogan and Mitchell, 2003). Strengths of IA's include the fact that participants gain ownership in their accounts and diversify their pension investments; nevertheless, IA participants also must bear capital-market risk. Recent market volatility has reminded investors of the importance of capital-market fluctuations and their potential impact on retirement income. In response, some policymakers have suggested that "guarantees" be designed to help protect IA investments. Abroad, such guarantees have been adopted in several Latin American countries undergoing reform, and most recently, in Japan and Germany (Mitchell and Kent Smetters, 2003). Sensible public policy recommending the adoption of guarantees must identify their costs and who will pay for them. In this paper, we discuss how to evaluate such costs in the context of a social-security reform that includes IA's, along with ways to finance them.

Suggested Citation

  • Marie-Eve Lachance & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2003. "Guaranteeing Individual Accounts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 257-260, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:93:y:2003:i:2:p:257-260
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/000282803321947155
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Mitchell, Olivia S. & Smetters, Kent (ed.), 2003. "The Pension Challenge: Risk Transfers and Retirement Income Security," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199266913.
    2. Martin Feldstein & Elena Ranguelova, 2001. "Accumulated Pension Collars: A Market Approach to Reducing the Risk of Investment-Based Social Security Reform," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 15, pages 149-166, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. John F. Cogan & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2003. "Perspectives from the President's Commission on Social Security Reform," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(2), pages 149-172, Spring.
    4. 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.
    5. Marie-Eve Lachance & Olivia S. Mitchell, 2002. "Understanding Individual Account Guarantees," NBER Working Papers 9195, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Smetters, Kent, 2002. "Controlling the cost of minimum benefit guarantees in public pension conversions," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 9-33, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Ishay Wolf, 2022. "Studying the equilibrium of pension designs when shifting to funded pension schemes: economic theory and links to political factors," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 2(7), pages 1-21, July.
    2. Mitchell, O.S. & Piggott, J., 2016. "Workplace-Linked Pensions for an Aging Demographic," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 865-904, Elsevier.
    3. Daliana Luca & Hato Schmeiser & Florian Schreiber, 2023. "Investment guarantees in financial products: an analysis of consumer preferences," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 48(4), pages 906-940, October.
    4. Stavros Panageas, 2007. "Optimal Retirement Benefit Guarantees," 2007 Meeting Papers 172, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Alicia H. Munnell & Alex Golub-Sass & Richard W. Kopcke & Anthony Webb, 2009. "What Does It Cost To Guarantee Returns?," Issues in Brief ib2009-9-4, Center for Retirement Research, revised Feb 2009.
    6. Daliana Luca, 2018. "Does prevention as an investment strategy explain the intention to purchase guarantees for unit-linked life insurance?," Journal of Financial Services Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 23(3), pages 153-167, December.
    7. Olivia S. Mitchell & Alexander Muermann, 2003. "The Demand for Guarantees in Social Security Personal Retirement Accounts," Working Papers wp060, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    8. Jeffrey Wenger & Christian E. Weller, 2008. "The Interplay between Labor and Financial Markets: What are the Implications for Defined Contribution Accounts?," Working Papers wp162, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    9. Andrew Biggs & Clark Burdick & Kent Smetters, 2009. "Pricing Personal Account Benefit Guarantees: A Simplified Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security Policy in a Changing Environment, pages 229-249, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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