IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/has/discpr/0908.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Hungarian Pension System and its Reform

Author

Listed:
  • Andras Simonovits

    (Institute of Economics - Hungarian Academy of Sciences)

Abstract

The goal of this study is to present an insider view on the pension reforms implemented in Hungary between 1996 and 2009. Both political economy as well as institutional economics will be used as the main approaches to analyse and explain the reform process and some of its effects. The following studies provide valuable insights: Palacios and Rocha (1998), Bokros and Dethier eds. (1998), Augusztinovics (1999), Augusztinovics et al. (2002), Simonovits (1999), (2000), (2008a), Czúcz and Pintér (2002), European Commission (2006), Gál (2006), Impavido and Rocha (2006), and Guardiancich (2008). The structure of the paper is as follows: Section 1 considers the legacy of the pension system. Section 2 summarises the debate on the pension reform and the basic decisions. Section 3 outlines the implementation of the pension reform, while Section 4 discusses the implementation problems. Section 5 describes the changes since the reform, while Section 6 analyses and Section 7 evaluates the reform. An Appendix discusses the issues of contribution rates.

Suggested Citation

  • Andras Simonovits, 2009. "Hungarian Pension System and its Reform," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 0908, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:has:discpr:0908
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://econ.core.hu/file/download/mtdp/MTDP0908.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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. Alejandra Cox Edwards, 2002. "Gender Effects of Social Security Reform in Chile," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 16(3), pages 321-343, December.
    3. Gábor Orbán & Dániel Palotai, 2005. "The sustainability of the Hungarian pension system: a reassessment," MNB Occasional Papers 2005/40, Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary).
    4. Olivia S. Mitchell, 1999. "New Evidence on the Money's Worth of Individual Annuities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1299-1318, December.
    5. Michele Boldrin & Juan J. Dolado & Juan F. Jimeno & Franco Peracchi, 1999. "The future of pensions in Europe," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 14(29), pages 288-320.
    6. Alan J. Auerbach & Jagadeesh Gokhale & Laurence J. Kotlikoff, 1994. "Generational Accounting: A Meaningful Way to Evaluate Fiscal Policy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 73-94, Winter.
    7. András Simonovits, 2003. "Modeling Pension Systems," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-59769-3, October.
    8. András Simonovits, 2000. "Partial privatization of a pension system: lessons from Hungary," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(4), pages 519-529.
    9. Gal, Robert I. & Tarcali, Geza, 2003. "Pension Reform and Intergenerational Redistribution in Hungary," Economic Review, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 54(3), pages 237-247, July.
    10. Andras Simonovits, 2008. "Underreported Earnings and Old-Age Pension: An Elementary Model," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 0805, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    11. Smetters, Kent & Walliser, Jan, 2004. "Opting out of social security," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1295-1306, July.
    12. J. Kornai, 1996. "Postsocialist Transition: An Overall Survey," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, vol. 1.
    13. András Simonovits, 2003. "Modeling Pension Systems," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-4039-3845-9, October.
    14. Martin Neil Baily & Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, 2009. "US Pension Reform: Lessons from Other Countries," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 4259, April.
    15. Impavido, Gregorio & Rocha, Roberto, 2006. "Competition and performance in the Hungarian second pillar," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3876, The World Bank.
    16. Szekely,Istvan & Newbery,David M. G., 2008. "Hungary: An Economy in Transition," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521057547, September.
    17. Palacios, Robert & Rocha, Roberto, 1998. "The Hungarian pension system in transition," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 20048, The World Bank.
    18. Andras Simonovits, 2009. "When and How to Subsidize Tax-Favored Retirement Accounts?," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 0902, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    19. Peter A. Diamond & Peter R. Orszag, 2005. "Saving Social Security," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 11-32, Spring.
    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. Miroslav Beblavý, 2011. "Why has the crisis been bad for private pensions, but good for the flat tax? The sustainability of ‘neoliberal’ reforms in the new EU member states," CEPS Papers 6313, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    2. Szabolcs Szikszai & Tamás Badics & Csilla Raffai & Zsolt Stenger & András Tóthmihály, 2013. "Studies in Financial Systems No 8 Hungary," FESSUD studies fstudy08, Financialisation, Economy, Society & Sustainable Development (FESSUD) Project.
    3. MLADEN, Luise, 2012. "Pension Reforms In Central And Eastern European Countries And Their Outcomes," Annals of Spiru Haret University, Economic Series, Universitatea Spiru Haret, vol. 3(1), pages 59-68.
    4. Major, Klára & Varga, Gergely, 2013. "Parametrikus nyugdíjreformok és életciklus-munkakínálat [Parametric pension reforms and life-cycle labour supply]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(11), pages 1169-1207.

    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. András Simonovits, 2006. "Social Security Reform in the US: Lessons from Hungary," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 0602, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, revised 24 Apr 2006.
    2. Andras Simonovits, 2018. "Forced reduction of pension contribution rate?," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1811, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    3. Gál, Róbert I. & Simonovits, András & Tarcali, Géza, 2001. "Generational accounting and Hungarian pension reform," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 90343, The World Bank.
    4. András Simonovits, 2014. "Design Errors in Public Pension Systems: The Case of Hungary," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1414, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    5. Simonovits, András, 1998. "Az új magyar nyugdíjrendszer és problémái [The new Hungarian pension system and its problems]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(7), pages 689-708.
    6. Martin Feldstein, 1997. "Transition to a Fully Funded Pension System: Five Economic Issues," NBER Working Papers 6149, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. David Miles & Ales Cerny, 2001. "Risk, Return and Portfolio Allocation under Alternative Pension Arrangements with Imperfect Financial Markets," CESifo Working Paper Series 441, CESifo.
    8. Rocha, Roberto & Vittas, Dimitri, 2001. "Pension reform in Hungary : a preliminary assessment," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2631, The World Bank.
    9. Andras Simonovits, 2013. "A family of simple paternalistic transfer models," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1324, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    10. David K. Miles, 2000. "Funded and Unfunded Pension Schemes: Risk, Return and Welfare," CESifo Working Paper Series 239, CESifo.
    11. András Simonovits, 2021. "Introducing Flexible Retirement: A Dynamic Model," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2021(6), pages 635-653.
    12. Davig, Troy & Leeper, Eric M. & Walker, Todd B., 2010. ""Unfunded liabilities" and uncertain fiscal financing," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(5), pages 600-619, July.
    13. Erin Cottle Hunt & Frank N. Caliendo, 2022. "Social security and risk sharing: A survey of four decades of economic analysis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(5), pages 1591-1609, December.
    14. 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.
    15. Andras Simonovits, 2020. "Indexing public pensions in progress to wages or prices," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 2015, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    16. Andras Simonovits, 1999. "The New Hungarian Pension System and its Problems," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 9901, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    17. Köllő, János & Augusztinovics, Mária, 2007. "Munkapiaci pálya és nyugdíj, 1970-2020 [Labour-market performance and pensions, 1970-2020]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(6), pages 529-559.
    18. Richard Disney & Robert Palacios & Edward Whitehouse, 1999. "Individual choice of pension arrangement as a pension reform strategy," IFS Working Papers W99/18, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    19. Friedrich Breyer, 2000. "Kapitaldeckungs‐ versus Umlageverfahren," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 1(4), pages 383-405, November.
    20. Nicholas Barr & Peter Diamond, 2006. "The Economics of Pensions," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 22(1), pages 15-39, Spring.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Hungary; pension reform; social security; private pension;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies
    • J32 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits; Retirement Plans; Private Pensions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:has:discpr:0908. 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: Nora Horvath (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iehashu.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.