IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v145y2016icp11-14.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The commitment value of funding pensions

Author

Listed:
  • Garon, Jean-Denis

Abstract

This paper studies how funding public pensions can improve policy outcomes when short-sighted governments cannot commit. We focus on sustainable plans, where optimal nonlinear pensions are not reneged on by sequential governments. Funding pensions is a commitment mechanism. It implies lower contributions than does the second best policy, which reduces temptation to over-redistribute later and to misuse revealed private information. Funding may be preferable even if the population growth rate is higher than the rate of return on assets. Second best optimal policies are also more likely to be renegotiation proof under fully funded pensions.

Suggested Citation

  • Garon, Jean-Denis, 2016. "The commitment value of funding pensions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 11-14.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:145:y:2016:i:c:p:11-14
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2016.04.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176516301173
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2016.04.007?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe, 1993. "Sustainable Plans and Mutual Default," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 175-195.
    2. 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.
    3. Dotsey, Michael & Li, Wenli & Yang, Fang, 2015. "Home production and Social Security reform," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 131-150.
    4. Emmanuel Farhi & Christopher Sleet & Iván Werning & Sevin Yeltekin, 2012. "Non-linear Capital Taxation Without Commitment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(4), pages 1469-1493.
    5. Barr, Nicholas, 2002. "Reforming pensions: myths, truths, and policy choices," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 286, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Diamond, P., 1994. "Insulations of pensions from Political Risk," Working papers 94-20, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    7. Blake, David, 2000. "Does It Matter What Type of Pension Scheme You Have?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(461), pages 46-81, February.
    8. Feldstein, Martin, 2002. "The future of social security pensions in Europe," Journal of Financial Transformation, Capco Institute, vol. 5, pages 8-12.
    9. Boadway, Robin & Keen, Michael, 1998. "Evasion and Time Consistency in the Taxation of Capital Income," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(2), pages 461-476, May.
    10. Craig Brett & John A. Weymark, 2019. "Optimal nonlinear taxation of income and savings without commitment," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 21(1), pages 5-43, February.
    11. Assar Lindbeck & Mats Persson, 2003. "The Gains from Pension Reform," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 74-112, March.
    12. Boadway, Robin & Marceau, Nicolas & Marchand, Maurice, 1996. "Time-consistent subsidies to unlucky firms," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 619-634, April.
    13. Chari, V V & Kehoe, Patrick J, 1990. "Sustainable Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 783-802, August.
    14. Peter A. Diamond, 1996. "Proposals to Restructure Social Security," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 67-88, Summer.
    15. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1982. "Self-selection and Pareto efficient taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 213-240, March.
    16. repec:bla:econom:v:63:y:1996:i:250:p:171-89 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Martin Feldstein & Horst Siebert, 2002. "Social Security Pension Reform in Europe," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number feld02-2.
    18. Robin Boadway & Nicolas Marceau & Maurice Marchand, 1992. "Investment in Education and the Time Inconsistency of Redistributive Tax Policy," Working Paper 860, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    19. J. A. Mirrlees, 1971. "An Exploration in the Theory of Optimum Income Taxation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 38(2), pages 175-208.
    20. David C. Wyld, 2010. "ASecond Lifefor organizations?: managing in the new, virtual world," Management Research Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 33(6), pages 529-562, May.
    21. A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), 2002. "Handbook of Public Economics," Handbook of Public Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 4.
    22. Nicholas Barr, 2002. "Reforming pensions: Myths, truths, and policy choices," International Social Security Review, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(2), pages 3-36.
    23. Dutta, Jayasri & Kapur, Sandeep & Orszag, J. Michael, 2000. "A portfolio approach to the optimal funding of pensions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 201-206, November.
    24. Debortoli, Davide & Nunes, Ricardo, 2010. "Fiscal policy under loose commitment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(3), pages 1005-1032, May.
    25. A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), 2002. "Handbook of Public Economics," Handbook of Public Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    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. Yundan Guo & Li Shen, 2023. "Commercial Retirement FOFs in China: Investment and Persistence Performance Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(18), pages 1-22, 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. Christian Keuschnigg & Mirela Keuschnigg & Christian Jaag, 2011. "Aging and the Financing of Social Security in Switzerland," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 147(II), pages 181-231, June.
    2. Staveley-O’Carroll, James & Staveley-O’Carroll, Olena M., 2017. "Impact of pension system structure on international financial capital allocation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 1-22.
    3. Dennis Fredriksen & Nils Martin Stølen, 2015. "Life time pension benefits relative to life time contributions," Discussion Papers 825, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    4. Vinish SHRESTHA, 2016. "How Efficient are the Current U.S. Beer Taxes?," Journal of Economics and Political Economy, KSP Journals, vol. 3(3), pages 446-470, September.
    5. Kaymak, Barış & Poschke, Markus, 2016. "The evolution of wealth inequality over half a century: The role of taxes, transfers and technology," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 1-25.
    6. Godínez-Olivares, Humberto & Boado-Penas, María del Carmen & Haberman, Steven, 2016. "Optimal strategies for pay-as-you-go pension finance: A sustainability framework," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 117-126.
    7. Iñigo Iturbe-Ormaetxe, 2015. "Salience of social security contributions and employment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 22(5), pages 741-759, October.
    8. Chen, Yunmin & Guo, Jang-Ting & Krause, Alan, 2020. "The credibility of commitment and optimal nonlinear savings taxation," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    9. Hagen, Johannes, 2013. "A History of the Swedish Pension System," Working Paper Series, Center for Fiscal Studies 2013:7, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    10. Bossi, Luca, 2008. "Intergenerational risk shifting through social security and bailout politics," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 2240-2268, July.
    11. De Andrés Mosquera, Andrés, 2017. "Los determinantes a largo plazo y su contribución a la tasa de ahorro de los hogares españoles en el período 1985-2016 || Long-term determinants and its contribution to Spanish household saving rate d," Revista de Métodos Cuantitativos para la Economía y la Empresa = Journal of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Quantitative Methods for Economics and Business Administration, vol. 24(1), pages 292-339, Diciembre.
    12. Kaschützke, B. & Maurer, R., 2016. "Investing and Portfolio Allocation for Retirement," 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 567-608, Elsevier.
    13. Keuschnigg, Christian & Fisher, Walter, 2011. "Life-Cycle Unemployment, Retirement and Parametric Pension Reform," Economics Working Paper Series 1119, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    14. MOUNA BEN OTHMAN & Mohamed Ali MAROUANI, 2016. "Labor Market Effects of Pension Reform :an overlapping genenrations general equilibrium model applied to Tunisia," EcoMod2016 9294, EcoMod.
    15. Walter Fisher & Christian Keuschnigg, 2010. "Pension reform and labor market incentives," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 23(2), pages 769-803, March.
    16. Hans Fehr & Fabian Kindermann, 2010. "Pension Funding and Individual Accounts in Economies with Life-cyclers and Myopes," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 56(3), pages 404-443, September.
    17. Hurst, Erik & Willen, Paul, 2007. "Social security and unsecured debt," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(7-8), pages 1273-1297, August.
    18. Thomas Aronsson & James R. Walker, 2010. "Labor Supply, Tax Base and Public Policy in Sweden," NBER Chapters, in: Reforming the Welfare State: Recovery and Beyond in Sweden, pages 127-158, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. de la Torre, Augusto & Gozzi, Juan Carlos & Schmukler, Sergio L., 2007. "Stock market development under globalization: Whither the gains from reforms?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1731-1754, June.
    20. Konrad, Kai A., 2001. "Privacy and time-consistent optimal labor income taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 503-519, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Pensions; Commitment; Redistribution; Funding;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household

    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:eee:ecolet:v:145:y:2016:i:c:p:11-14. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    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.