期刊名称：Discussion Paper Series / Department of Economics, New York University
出版年度：2003
卷号：1
出版社：New York University
摘要：166 countries have some kind of public old age pension. What economic forces create and
sustain old-age Social Security as a public program? In the first part of the paper, we document some of
the internationally and historically common features of Social Security programs including explicit and
implicit taxes on labor supply, pay-as-you-go features, intergenerational redistribution, benefits which are
increasing functions of lifetime earnings and not means-tested.
The rest of the paper discusses various positive theories of Social Security and compares each of
them with the empirical regularities uncovered in the first part. We partition theories into three groups:
“political”, “efficiency” and “narrative” theories. We explore three political theories: the majority rational
voting model (with its two versions: “the elderly as the leaders of a winning coalition with the poor” and
the “once and for all election” model), the “time-intensive model of political competition” and the
“taxpayer protection model”. We then discuss the “efficiency theories,” which view creation of the SS
program as a full or partial solution to some market failure. Efficiency explanations of social security
include the “SS as welfare for the elderly”, the “retirement increases productivity to optimally manage
human capital externalities”, “optimal retirement insurance”, “labor market congestion,” the “prodigal
father problem”, the “misguided Keynesian”, the “optimal longevity insurance”, the “government
economizing transaction costs”, and the “return on human capital investment” theory. Finally we analyze
three “narrative” theories of social security: the “chain letter theory”, the “monopoly capitalism theory”,
and the “Sub-but-Nearly-Optimal policy response to private pensions theory”.
The political and efficiency explanations are compared with the international and historical facts
and used to derive implications for replacing the typical pay-as-you-go system with a forced savings plan.
Most of the explanations suggest that forced savings does not increase welfare. In fact, it may decrease
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