IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/17015.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Matter of Trust: Understanding Worldwide Public Pension Conversions

Author

Listed:
  • Kent Smetters
  • Walter E. Theseira

Abstract

This paper seeks to explain the key two stylized facts of fundamental reforms to social security systems worldwide: Why have so many countries reformed when traditional systems seem, at first glance, to have a higher probability of delivering a secure retirement income? Why have these reforms been larger in developing countries facing less severe demographic problems? We show that an OLG voter model can answer both questions. Larger reforms are motivated by a fundamental breakdown in intergenerational trust while smaller reforms are caused by a lack of trust in the ability of the government to save. Empirical analysis seems to support the model.

Suggested Citation

  • Kent Smetters & Walter E. Theseira, 2011. "A Matter of Trust: Understanding Worldwide Public Pension Conversions," NBER Working Papers 17015, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17015
    Note: AG PE POL
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w17015.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. Eduardo Walker & Fernando Lefort, 2002. "Pension Reform And Capital Markets: Are There Any (Hard) Links?," Abante, Escuela de Administracion. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 5(2), pages 77-149.
    3. John Geanakoplos & Olivia S. Mitchell & Stephen P. Zeldes, "undated". "Would a Privatized Social Security System Really Pay a Higher Rate of Return?," Pension Research Council Working Papers 98-6, Wharton School Pension Research Council, University of Pennsylvania.
    4. Gruber, Jonathan & Wise, David, 1998. "Social Security and Retirement: An International Comparison," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 158-163, May.
    5. Kent Smetters, 2004. "Is the Social Security Trust Fund a Store of Value?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 176-181, May.
    6. A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), 2002. "Handbook of Public Economics," Handbook of Public Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 4, number 4.
    7. The Editors, 1996. "The Social Security Debate," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(6), pages 15-15, November.
    8. Jonathan Gruber & David A. Wise, 1999. "Social Security and Retirement around the World," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number grub99-1.
    9. Verbon, H. A. A., 1988. "Explaining pay-as-you-go financed public pension systems," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 181-187.
    10. Douglas W. Elmendorf & Louise M. Sheiner, 2000. "Should America Save for Its Old Age? Fiscal Policy, Population Aging, and National Saving," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 57-74, Summer.
    11. Walker, Eduardo*Lefort, Fernando, 2002. "Pension reform and capital markets : are there any (hard) links?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 24082, The World Bank.
    12. Hubbard, R Glenn & Judd, Kenneth L, 1987. "Social Security and Individual Welfare: Precautionary Saving, Borrowing Constraints, and the Payroll Tax," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(4), pages 630-646, September.
    13. 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. Erzo F. P. Luttmer & Andrew A. Samwick, 2018. "The Welfare Cost of Perceived Policy Uncertainty: Evidence from Social Security," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(2), pages 275-307, February.

    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. 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.
    2. De la Torre, Augusto & Schmukler, Sergio, 2007. "Emerging Capital Markets and Globalization: The Latin American Experience," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 349, November.
    3. 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.
    4. Oscar Becerra, 2018. "Effects of Future Pension Benefits on Pre-retirement Labor Supply: Evidence from Chile," Documentos CEDE 16965, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    5. Augusto de la Torre & Sergio L. Schmukler, 2007. "Emerging Capital Markets and Globalization : The Latin American Experience," World Bank Publications, The World Bank, number 7187, September.
    6. Louis Kaplow, 2014. "Government Policy and Labor Supply with Myopic or Targeted Savings Decisions," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 29, pages 159-193, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Tomi T. Kortela, 2011. "On the costs of disability insurance," 2011 Meeting Papers 445, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Daniel K. Fetter & Lee M. Lockwood, 2018. "Government Old-Age Support and Labor Supply: Evidence from the Old Age Assistance Program," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(8), pages 2174-2211, August.
    9. Raj Chetty & Amy Finkelstein, 2012. "Social Insurance: Connecting Theory to Data," NBER Working Papers 18433, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Dirk Krueger & Felix Kubler, 2006. "Pareto-Improving Social Security Reform when Financial Markets are Incomplete!?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 737-755, June.
    11. repec:dpr:wpaper:0905 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. 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.
    13. Hurst, Erik & Willen, Paul, 2007. "Social security and unsecured debt," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(7-8), pages 1273-1297, August.
    14. T. Scott Findley & Frank Caliendo, 2007. "OutSMarTing the Social Security Crisis," Public Finance Review, , vol. 35(6), pages 647-668, November.
    15. Staubli, Stefan & Lalive, Rafael & Magesan, Arvind, 2020. "The Impact of Social Security on Pension Claiming and Retirement: Active vs. Passive Decisions," CEPR Discussion Papers 15120, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Ryo Arawatari & Tetsuo Ono, 2010. "Retirement and Social Security: A Political Economy Perspective," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 10-04-Rev, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    17. Charles Yuji Horioka, 2014. "The Life and Work Of Martin Stuart (“Marty”) Feldstein," UP School of Economics Discussion Papers 201410, University of the Philippines School of Economics.
    18. Louis Kaplow, 2015. "Government Policy and Labor Supply with Myopic or Targeted Savings Decisions," Tax Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(1), pages 159-193.
    19. Juan Carlos Conesa & Carlos Garriga, 2008. "Generational Policy and the Macroeconomic Measurement of Tax Incidence," Working Papers 373, Barcelona School of Economics.
    20. Christian Jaag & Christian Keuschnigg & Mirela Keuschnigg, 2010. "Pension reform, retirement, and life-cycle unemployment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 17(5), pages 556-585, October.
    21. Börsch-Supan, A. & Härtl, K. & Leite, D.N., 2016. "Social Security and Public Insurance," 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 781-863, Elsevier.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H0 - Public Economics - - General
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public 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:nbr:nberwo:17015. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.