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Social Security And Retirement Decision: A Positive And Normative Approach

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  • Helmuth Cremer
  • Jean-Marie Lozachmeur
  • Pierre Pestieau

Abstract

Social insurance for the elderly is judged responsible for the widely observed trend towards early retirement. In a world of laissez-faire or in a first-best setting, there would be no such trend. However, when first-best instruments are not available, because health and productivity are not observable, the optimal social insurance policy may imply a distortion on the retirement decision. The main point we make is that while there is no doubt that retirement systems induce an excessive bias towards early retirement in many countries, a complete elimination of this bias (i.e. a switch to an actuarially fair system) is not the right answer for two reasons. First, some distortions are second-best optimal. This is the normative argument. Second, and on the positive side, the elimination of the bias might be problematic from a political perspective. Depending on the political process, either it may not be feasible or alternatively it may tend to undermine the political support for the pension system itself. Copyright 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation � 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by Wiley Blackwell in its journal Journal of Economic Surveys.

Volume (Year): 22 (2008)
Issue (Month): 2 (04)
Pages: 213-233

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Handle: RePEc:bla:jecsur:v:22:y:2008:i:2:p:213-233

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Cited by:
  1. Tim BUYSE & Freddy HEYLEN & Renaat VAN DE KERCKHOVE, 2011. "Pension reform, employment by age and long-run growth," Discussion Papers (IRES - Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales) 2011025, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
  2. Renaat Van de Kerckhove & Freddy Heylen & Tim Buyse, 2011. "Pension reform, employment by age, and long-run growth in OECD countries," 2011 Meeting Papers 736, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  3. Johann K. Brunner & Bernd Hoffmann, 2010. "Versicherungsmathematisch korrekte Pensionsabschläge," Economics working papers 2010-13, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
  4. Amadéo Spadaro, 2008. "Optimal taxation, social contract and the four worlds of welfare capitalism," Working Papers halshs-00586290, HAL.
  5. Euwals, Rob & van Vuren, Annemiek & van Vuuren, Daniel, 2011. "The Decline of Early Retirement Pathways in the Netherlands: An Empirical Analysis for the Health Care Sector," IZA Discussion Papers 5810, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).

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