IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/perwir/v5y2004i2p227-241.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Auf Leben und Tod – Steigende Lebenserwartung und Sozialversicherung

Author

Listed:
  • Friedrich Breyer

Abstract

Rapidly increasing life expectancy is seen by economists as a serious impediment to the financing of social security systems, no matter whether they are funded or not. However, what is less obvious is that these systems themselves may contribute to the increase in life expectancy by distorting people's incentives to invest in the length of their lives. This paper discusses theories of this moral hazard effect and offers some preliminary evidence on the empirical validity of this theory. I also present an option of reforming traditional social security systems which is designed to reduce this moral hazard effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Friedrich Breyer, 2004. "Auf Leben und Tod – Steigende Lebenserwartung und Sozialversicherung," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 5(2), pages 227-241, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:perwir:v:5:y:2004:i:2:p:227-241
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2516.2004.00149.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2516.2004.00149.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1468-2516.2004.00149.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Förster, 2000. "Trends and Driving Factors in Income Distribution and Poverty in the OECD Area," OECD Labour Market and Social Policy Occasional Papers 42, OECD Publishing.
    2. Jeffrey R. Brown, 2003. "Redistribution and Insurance: Mandatory Annuitization With Mortality Heterogeneity," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 70(1), pages 17-41, March.
    3. Tomas J. Philipson & Gary S. Becker, 1998. "Old-Age Longevity and Mortality-Contingent Claims," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(3), pages 551-573, June.
    4. Gerdtham, Ulf-G. & Ruhm, Christopher J., 2006. "Deaths rise in good economic times: Evidence from the OECD," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 298-316, December.
    5. Edmund Cannon & Ian Tonks, 2002. "Annuity Prices, Money's Worth and Replacement Ratios: UK experience 1972 - 2002," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 02/051, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    6. Breyer Friedrich & Ulrich Volker, 2000. "Gesundheitsausgaben, Alter und medizinischer Fortschritt: Eine Regressionsanalyse / Ageing, Medical Progress and Health Care Expenditures: A Regression Analysis," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 220(1), pages 1-17, February.
    7. Davies, James B. & Kuhn, Peter, 1992. "Social security, longevity, and moral hazard," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 91-106, October.
    8. Peter Bernholz, 2002. "The Revolt of Promethean Man," Homo Oeconomicus, Institute of SocioEconomics, vol. 18, pages 437-450.
    9. Browning, Edgar K, 1975. "Why the Social Insurance Budget Is Too Large in a Democracy," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 13(3), pages 373-388, September.
    10. Amy Finkelstein & James Poterba, 2002. "Selection Effects in the United Kingdom Individual Annuities Market," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(476), pages 28-50, January.
    11. Eckstein, Zvi & Eichenbaum, Martin & Peled, Dan, 1985. "Uncertain lifetimes and the welfare enhancing properties of annuity markets and social security," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 303-326, April.
    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. Peter Zweifel, 2006. "Auftrag und Grenzen der Sozialen Krankenversicherung," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 7(s1), pages 5-26, May.
    2. Bert Rürup, 2012. "Die Riester-Reformen - Genese, Wunsch und Wirklichkeit," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 81(2), pages 35-42.

    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. Breyer, Friedrich & Franz, Wolfgang & Homburg, Stefan & Schnabel, Reinhold & Wille, Eberhard, 2004. "Reform der sozialen Sicherung: Kurzfassung," EconStor Books, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 92399, March.
    2. Raj Chetty & Amy Finkelstein, 2012. "Social Insurance: Connecting Theory to Data," NBER Working Papers 18433, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Siew Ling Yew & Jie Zhang, 2018. "Health spending, savings and fertility in a lifecycle‐dynastic model with longevity externalities," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(1), pages 186-215, February.
    4. Silvia Platoni, 2010. "Asymmetric Information and Annuities," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(3), pages 501-532, June.
    5. Pierre Pestieau & Gregory Ponthiere, 2012. "The Public Economics of Increasing Longevity," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 200(1), pages 41-74, March.
    6. Stelter, Robert, 2014. "Over-aging: Are present human populations too old?," Thuenen-Series of Applied Economic Theory 137, University of Rostock, Institute of Economics.
    7. Arnaud Van Bellingen, 2007. "Quelles perspectives de développement pour le marché des annuités?," CREPP Working Papers 0701, Centre de Recherche en Economie Publique et de la Population (CREPP) (Research Center on Public and Population Economics) HEC-Management School, University of Liège.
    8. Kai (Jackie) Zhao, 2011. "Social Security and the Rise in Health Spending: A Macroeconomic Analysis," 2011 Meeting Papers 1061, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Pestieau, Pierre & Ponthiere, Gregory, 2016. "Longevity Variations And The Welfare State," Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(2), pages 207-239, June.
    10. Wojciech Kopczuk, 2003. "The Trick Is to Live: Is the Estate Tax Social Security for the Rich?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(6), pages 1318-1341, December.
    11. Blake, David & Boardman, Tom, 2010. "Spend more today: Using behavioural economics to improve retirement expenditure decisions," MPRA Paper 34234, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Torben M. Andersen & Joydeep Bhattacharya, 2014. "A dynamic-efficiency rationale for public investment in the health of the young," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 47(3), pages 697-719, August.
    13. Maik T. Schneider & Ralph Winkler, 2021. "Growth and Welfare under Endogenous Lifetimes," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 123(4), pages 1339-1384, October.
    14. Kuhn, Michael & Wrzaczek, Stefan & Prskawetz, Alexia & Feichtinger, Gustav, 2011. "Externalities in a life cycle model with endogenous survival," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(4-5), pages 627-641.
    15. Susanne Pech, 2002. "Tax incentives for private life annuities and the social security reform: Effects on consumption and on adverse selection," Economics working papers 2002-09, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    16. Dardanoni, V & Li Donni, P, 2008. "Testing For Asymmetric Information In Insurance Markets With Unobservable Types," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 08/26, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    17. Susanne Pech, 2004. "Portfolio decisions on life annuities and financial assets with longevity and income uncertainty," Economics working papers 2004-14, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    18. Johann K. Brunner & Susanne Pech, 2006. "Adverse selection in the annuity market with sequential and simultaneous insurance demand," The Geneva Risk and Insurance Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 31(2), pages 111-146, December.
    19. Ben J. Heijdra & Jochen O. Mierau, 2009. "Annuity Market Imperfection, Retirement and Economic Growth," CESifo Working Paper Series 2717, CESifo.
    20. Zweifel Peter, 2007. "Das Sisyphus-Syndrom im Gesundheitswesen: Neue Evidenz / The Sisyphus Syndrome in Health: New Evidence," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 227(5-6), pages 660-678, October.

    More about this item

    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:bla:perwir:v:5:y:2004:i:2:p:227-241. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfsocea.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.