IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zur/iewwpx/236.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fostering Within-Family Human Capital Investment: An Intragenerational Insurance Perspective of Social Security

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Barbie
  • Marcus Hagedorn
  • Ashok Kaul

Abstract

We propose an extended PAYG social security system that conditions pension benefits on the aggregate wage sum and on the wage of one�s children. The latter increases parents� incentives to provide their children with good within-family education. However, since wages depend stochastically on parents� unobservable investment in their children�s human capital, some insurance against the productivity risk of one�s children is provided because retirement income still depends on aggregate wages. We analyze the effects of such a social security system on the endogenous distribution of human capital and compare it to real world systems which typically do not condition benefits on the wages of one�s children. Our approach suggests a novel role for a well-designed social security system: it can foster human capital accumulation and act as an intra-generational insurance against productivity risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Barbie & Marcus Hagedorn & Ashok Kaul, "undated". "Fostering Within-Family Human Capital Investment: An Intragenerational Insurance Perspective of Social Security," IEW - Working Papers 236, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    • Handle: RePEc:zur:iewwpx:236
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/52128/1/iewwp236.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert C. Merton, 1981. "On the Role of Social Security as a Means for Efficient Risk-Bearing in an Economy Where Human Capital Is Not Tradeable," NBER Working Papers 0743, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Enders, Walter & Lapan, Harvey E, 1982. "Social Security Taxation and Intergenerational Risk Sharing," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 23(3), pages 647-658, October.
    3. Martin Kolmar, 1997. "Intergenerational redistribution in a small open economy with endogenous fertility," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 10(3), pages 335-356.
    4. Shiller, Robert J., 1999. "Social security and institutions for intergenerational, intragenerational, and international risk-sharing," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 165-204, June.
    5. Andrew B. Abel, 2001. "The Social Security Trust Fund, the Riskless Interest Rate, and Capital Accumulation," NBER Chapters, in: Risk Aspects of Investment-Based Social Security Reform, pages 153-202, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. James Heckman, 2011. "Policies to foster human capital," Voprosy obrazovaniya / Educational Studies Moscow, National Research University Higher School of Economics, issue 3, pages 73-137.
    7. Henning Bohn, 2001. "Social Security and Demographic Uncertainty: The Risk-Sharing Properties of Alternative Policies," NBER Chapters, in: Risk Aspects of Investment-Based Social Security Reform, pages 203-246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Dilip Mookherjee, 1984. "Optimal Incentive Schemes with Many Agents," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 51(3), pages 433-446.
    9. repec:cdl:ucsbec:03-98 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Barbie, Martin & Hagedorn, Marcus & Kaul, Ashok, 2000. "Dynamic Efficiency and Pareto Optimality in a Stochastic OLG Model with Production and Social Security," IZA Discussion Papers 209, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Smith, Alasdair, 1982. "Intergenerational transfers as social insurance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 97-106, October.
    12. Cigno, Alessandro & Luporini, Annalisa & Pettini, Anna, 2003. "Transfers to families with children as a principal-agent problem," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(5-6), pages 1165-1177, May.
    13. Bengt Holmstrom, 1982. "Moral Hazard in Teams," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 324-340, Autumn.
    14. Zvi Bodie & John B. Shoven, 1983. "Financial Aspects of the United States Pension System," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bodi83-1.
    15. Michele Boldrin & Ana Montes, 2005. "The Intergenerational State Education and Pensions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 651-664.
    16. Bengt Holmstrom, 1979. "Moral Hazard and Observability," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 74-91, Spring.
    17. repec:cdl:ucsbec:3-98 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Gabrielle Demange & Guy Laroque, 1999. "Social Security and Demographic Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(3), pages 527-542, May.
    19. 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.
    20. Schweizer, Urs, 1996. "Endogenous fertility and the Henry George Theorem," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 209-228, August.
    21. Christian Gollier, 2004. "The Economics of Risk and Time," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262572249, April.
    22. Gordon, Roger H. & Varian, Hal R., 1988. "Intergenerational risk sharing," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 185-202, November.
    23. Campbell, John Y. & Feldstein, Martin (ed.), 2000. "Risk Aspects of Investment-Based Social Security Reform," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226092553, September.
    24. Bohn, Henning, 1998. "Risk Sharing in a Stochastic Overlapping Generations Economy," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt9r2809f0, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    25. Robert Myers, 1999. "Social Security," North American Actuarial Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(4), pages 59-63.
    26. Robert C. Merton, 1983. "On the Role of Social Security as a Means for Efficient Risk Sharing in an Economy Where Human Capital Is Not Tradable," NBER Chapters, in: Financial Aspects of the United States Pension System, pages 325-358, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Meier, Volker & Wrede, Matthias, 2010. "Pensions, fertility, and education," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(1), pages 75-93, January.
    2. Fehr, Ernst & Fischbacher, Urs & Kosfeld, Michael, 2005. "Neuroeconomic Foundations of Trust and Social Preferences," IZA Discussion Papers 1641, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Tania Singer & Ernst Fehr, 2005. "The Neuroeconomics of Mind Reading and Empathy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 340-345, May.
    4. Armin Falk & Ernst Fehr & Christian Zehnder, "undated". "The Behavioral Effects of Minimum Wages," IEW - Working Papers 247, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.

    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. 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.
    2. Matsen, Egil & Thogersen, Oystein, 2004. "Designing social security - a portfolio choice approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 883-904, August.
    3. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2006-066 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Lans Bovenberg & Harald Uhlig, 2008. "Pension Systems and the Allocation of Macroeconomic Risk," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2006, pages 241-344, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. D'Amato, Marcello & Galasso, Vincenzo, 2010. "Political intergenerational risk sharing," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(9-10), pages 628-637, October.
    6. Kolmar, Martin & Meier, Volker, 2012. "Intragenerational externalities and intergenerational transfers," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(4), pages 531-548, October.
    7. Borgmann, Christoph, 2002. "Labor income risk, demographic risk, and the design of (wage-indexed) social security," Discussion Papers 100, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Institut für Finanzwissenschaft.
    8. David K. Miles, 2000. "Funded and Unfunded Pension Schemes: Risk, Return and Welfare," CESifo Working Paper Series 239, CESifo.
    9. Boldrin, Michele & Montes, Ana, 2015. "Modeling an immigration shock," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 190-206.
    10. Martin Feldstein & Elena Ranguelova, 1998. "Individual Risk and Intergenerational Risk Sharing in an Investment-Based Social Security Program," NBER Working Papers 6839, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Toshiki Tamai, 2023. "Social security, economic growth, and social welfare in an overlapping generation model with idiosyncratic TFP shock and heterogeneous workers," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(3), pages 1829-1862, July.
    12. Miles, David & Sefton, James, 2002. "Optimal Social Security Design," CEPR Discussion Papers 3290, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Miles, David, 2000. "Funded and Unfunded Pensions: Risk, Return and Welfare," CEPR Discussion Papers 2369, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. David Miles & Ales Cerny, 2001. "Risk, Return and Portfolio Allocation under Alternative Pension Arrangements with Imperfect Financial Markets," CESifo Working Paper Series 441, CESifo.
    15. Shiller, Robert J., 1999. "Social security and institutions for intergenerational, intragenerational, and international risk-sharing," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 165-204, June.
    16. Gottardi, Piero & Kubler, Felix, 2011. "Social security and risk sharing," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 1078-1106, May.
    17. Gabrielle Demange, 2009. "On Sustainable Pay‐as‐You‐Go Contribution Rules," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 11(4), pages 493-527, August.
    18. Hoevenaars, J. & Ponds, E.H.M., 2008. "Valuation of intergenerational transfers in collective funded pension schemes," Other publications TiSEM 2c1afa01-df29-490e-bc52-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    19. Beetsma, R. & Romp, W., 2016. "Intergenerational Risk Sharing," 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 311-380, Elsevier.
    20. Gabrielle Demange, 2005. "On sustainable pay as you go systems," PSE Working Papers halshs-00590859, HAL.
    21. Michael Voigtländer, 2005. "Qualitative und quantitative Aspekte einer Elternrente?," List Forum Chapter, in: List Gesellschaft e.V. (ed.), List Forum Band 31, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 13, pages 215-230, List Gesellschaft e.V..

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Human Capital Formation; Social Security; Intragenerational Insurance; Heterogenous Households;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis

    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:zur:iewwpx:236. 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: Severin Oswald (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.