IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/ecdecc/v58y2010i2p297-322.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Who Benefits from Public Old Age Pensions? Evidence from a Targeted Program

Author

Listed:
  • Elliott Fan

Abstract

Given the aging of the population, policies relating to the design and reform of public pension programs are prominent in policy debates. For many developing countries, a major concern centers around the possible displacement of traditional family-based support by public programs. One challenge in estimating this displacement, or crowding out, is the endogeneity of social security benefits-the incidence and size of benefits may be correlated with unobserved determinants of private transfers, especially if benefits are means tested. Using two rich data sets, this article explores the impact of the Taiwanese Farmers' Pension Program (FPP) on recipients and their noncohabiting adult children. The FPP is targeted at elderly farmers and has relatively clean, exogenous rules for eligibility that allow the endogeneity problem to be addressed. Estimates from multiple identification strategies consistently imply that 1 dollar of pension crowds out 30-39 cents of private transfers received by the elderly. Mirroring these results, the pension also reduces the probability that the recipients' children make transfers to their parents. Further, the pension increases both the recipients' and their children's consumption, thus providing direct evidence of an improvement in the well-being of pensioners' offspring. (c) 2010 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

Suggested Citation

  • Elliott Fan, 2010. "Who Benefits from Public Old Age Pensions? Evidence from a Targeted Program," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(2), pages 297-322, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:ecdecc:v:58:y:2010:i:2:p:297-322
    DOI: 10.1086/647977
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/647977
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/647977?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barro, Robert J, 1974. "Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1095-1117, Nov.-Dec..
    2. Angrist, Joshua D. & Krueger, Alan B., 1999. "Empirical strategies in labor economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 23, pages 1277-1366, Elsevier.
    3. Robert Holzmann & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2001. "New Ideas about Old Age Security : Toward Sustainable Pension Systems in the 21st Century," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13857.
    4. Cox, Donald & Jakubson, George, 1995. "The connection between public transfers and private interfamily transfers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 129-167, May.
    5. Altonji, Joseph G & Hayashi, Fumio & Kotlikoff, Laurence J, 1992. "Is the Extended Family Altruistically Linked? Direct Tests Using Micro Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(5), pages 1177-1198, December.
    6. Hansen, Christian B., 2007. "Generalized least squares inference in panel and multilevel models with serial correlation and fixed effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 670-694, October.
    7. Martin Feldstein & Elena Ranguelova, 2001. "Individual Risk in an Investment-Based Social Security System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1116-1125, September.
    8. Cox, Donald C & Jimenez, Emmanuel, 1992. "Social Security and Private Transfers in Developing Countries: The Case of Peru," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 6(1), pages 155-169, January.
    9. Powell, James L., 1984. "Least absolute deviations estimation for the censored regression model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 303-325, July.
    10. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    11. Chou, Shin-Yi & Liu, Jin-Tan & Hammitt, James K., 2003. "National Health Insurance and precautionary saving: evidence from Taiwan," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(9-10), pages 1873-1894, September.
    12. Maitra, Pushkar & Ray, Ranjan, 2003. "The effect of transfers on household expenditure patterns and poverty in South Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 23-49, June.
    13. Cox, Donald, 1987. "Motives for Private Income Transfers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(3), pages 508-546, June.
    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. Rosangela Bando & Sebastian Galiani & Paul Gertler, 2020. "The Effects of Noncontributory Pensions on Material and Subjective Well-Being," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 68(4), pages 1233-1255.
    2. Nikolov, Plamen & Adelman, Alan, 2019. "Do private household transfers to the elderly respond to public pension benefits? Evidence from rural China," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 14(C).
    3. Yanying Chen & Yi Jin Tan, 2018. "The effect of non-contributory pensions on labour supply and private income transfers: evidence from Singapore," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 7(1), pages 1-54, December.
    4. Bottan, Nicolas & Hoffmann, Bridget & Vera-Cossio, Diego A., 2021. "Stepping up during a crisis: The unintended effects of a noncontributory pension program during the Covid-19 pandemic," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    5. Ravallion, Martin & Chen, Shaohua, 2013. "Benefit incidence with incentive effects, measurement errors and latent heterogeneity," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6573, The World Bank.
    6. Heath Henderson & Arnob Alam, 2022. "The structure of risk-sharing networks," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(2), pages 853-886, February.
    7. Yang, Feng-An & Chang, Hung-Hao, 2023. "Impact of a pension program on healthcare utilization among older farmers: Empirical evidence from health claims data," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    8. Kaushal, Neeraj, 2014. "How Public Pension affects Elderly Labor Supply and Well-being: Evidence from India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 214-225.
    9. Hungerman, Daniel M., 2014. "Public goods, hidden income, and tax evasion: Some nonstandard results from the warm-glow model," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 188-202.
    10. Laura Juarez & Tobias Pfutze, 2015. "The Effects of a Noncontributory Pension Program on Labor Force Participation: The Case of 70 y Más in Mexico," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(4), pages 685-713.
    11. Bando, Rosangela & Galiani, Sebastian & Gertler, Paul, 2022. "Another brick on the wall: On the effects of non-contributory pensions on material and subjective well being," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 16-26.
    12. Ravallion, Martin & Chen, Shaohua, 2015. "Benefit incidence with incentive effects, measurement errors and latent heterogeneity: A case study for China," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 124-132.
    13. Clemente Ávila‐Parra & David Escamilla‐Guerrero & Oscar Gálvez‐Soriano, 2024. "Minimum eligibility age for social pensions and household poverty: Evidence from Mexico," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(1), pages 175-196, January.
    14. Herrmann, Tabea & Leckcivilize, Attakrit & Zenker, Juliane, 2021. "The impact of cash transfers on child outcomes in rural Thailand: Evidence from a social pension reform," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 19(C).
    15. Independent Evaluation Group, 2014. "Social Safety Nets and Gender : Learning from Impact Evaluations and World Bank Projects," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 21365.
    16. Zhaohua Zhang & Yuxi Luo & Derrick Robinson, 2019. "Who Are the Beneficiaries of China’s New Rural Pension Scheme? Sons, Daughters, or Parents?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(17), pages 1-16, August.
    17. Laura Juárez & Yunuen Nicte Rodríguez Piña, 2020. "El efecto de las pensiones no contributivas sobre el bienestar subjetivo de los adultos mayores en México," Serie documentos de trabajo del Centro de Estudios Económicos 2020-03, El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Económicos.

    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. Nikolov, Plamen & Bonci, Matthew, 2020. "Do public program benefits crowd out private transfers in developing countries? A critical review of recent evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    2. Grimm, Michael & Hartwig, Renate & Reitmann, Ann-Kristin & Bocoum, Fadima Yaya, 2021. "Inter-household transfers: An empirical investigation of the income-transfer relationship with novel data from Burkina Faso," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    3. Juarez, Laura, 2009. "Crowding out of private support to the elderly: Evidence from a demogrant in Mexico," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(3-4), pages 454-463, April.
    4. Laura Juarez, 2007. "Altruism, Exchange and Crowding Out of Private Support to the Elderly: Evidence from a Demogrant in Mexico," Working Papers 0707, Centro de Investigacion Economica, ITAM.
    5. Elliott Fan, 2010. "Does Public Income Induce More Consumption?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 86(272), pages 15-27, March.
    6. Aldieri, Luigi & Fiorillo, Damiano, 2015. "Private monetary transfers and altruism: An empirical investigation on Italian families," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 1-15.
    7. Nikolov, Plamen & Adelman, Alan, 2019. "Do private household transfers to the elderly respond to public pension benefits? Evidence from rural China," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 14(C).
    8. Lai, Mun Sim & Orsuwan, Meechai, 2009. "Examining the Impact of Taiwan's Cash Allowance Program on Private Households," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 1250-1260, July.
    9. Kazianga, H., 2006. "Motives for household private transfers in Burkina Faso," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 73-117, February.
    10. Kananurak, Papar & Sirisankanan, Aeggarchat, 2016. "Do Public Transfers Crowd-out Private Transfers? Evidence from the Thai Socio-Economic Panel Survey," Asian Journal of Applied Economics, Kasetsart University, Center for Applied Economics Research, vol. 23(2), December.
    11. Sumon K. Bhaumik, 2001. "Intergenerational transfers: the ignored role of time," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2001-008, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    12. Anette Reil-Held, 2006. "Crowding out or crowding in? Public and private transfers in Germany [Substituts ou compléments? Transferts publics et privés en Allemagne]," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 263-280, September.
    13. Brent Berry, 2008. "Financial Transfers from Living Parents to Adult Children: Who Is Helped and Why?," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(2), pages 207-239, April.
    14. Ernesto Villanueva, 2001. "Parental altruism under imperfect information: Theory and evidence," Economics Working Papers 566, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Sep 2002.
    15. Kristopher Gerardi & Yuping Tsai, 2014. "The Effect of Social Entitlement Programmes on Private Transfers: New Evidence of Crowding Out," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 81(324), pages 721-746, October.
    16. Hsin-Ling Hsieh & Shin-Yi Chou & Echu Liu & Hsien-Ming Lien, 2015. "Strengthening or Weakening? The Impact of Universal Health Insurance on Intergenerational Coresidence in Taiwan," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(3), pages 883-904, June.
    17. Banerjee, Abhijit V., 2004. "Educational policy and the economics of the family," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 3-32, June.
    18. Jensen, Robert T., 2004. "Do private transfers 'displace' the benefits of public transfers? Evidence from South Africa," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1-2), pages 89-112, January.
    19. Edwin Fourrier-Nicolai, 2020. "How Family Transfers Crowd-out Social Assistance in Germany," AMSE Working Papers 2023, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    20. Pelek, Selin & Polat, Sezgin, 2019. "Exploring inter-household transfers:An assessment using panel data from Turkey," GIAM Working Papers 00-0, Galatasaray University Economic Research Center.

    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:ucp:ecdecc:v:58:y:2010:i:2:p:297-322. 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/EDCC .

    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.