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Sustainable and equitable pensions with means testing in aging economies

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  • Kudrna, George
  • Tran, Chung
  • Woodland, Alan

Abstract

A means-tested pension system has a distinct feature that tailors the level of pension benefits according to individual economic status. In the context of population aging with widening gaps in life expectancies, we show that this feature generates an automatic mechanism that (i) mitigates the pressing fiscal cost of an old-age public pension program (fiscal stabilization device) and (ii) redistributes pension benefits to those in need with shorter life expectancies (redistributive device). To evaluate this automatic mechanism, we employ an overlapping generations model with population aging. Our results indicate that this novel mechanism plays an important role in containing the adverse effects of population aging on the fiscal costs and enhancing the progressivity of a pension system. More pronounced aging scenarios further strengthen the role of this mechanism. A well-designed means test rule can create a sufficiently strong automatic mechanism to keep public pensions sustainable and progressive under population aging.

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  • Kudrna, George & Tran, Chung & Woodland, Alan, 2022. "Sustainable and equitable pensions with means testing in aging economies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:141:y:2022:i:c:s0014292121002415
    DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2021.103947
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    2. Delalibera, Bruno Ricardo & Ferreira, Pedro Cavalcanti & Parente, Rafael Machado, 2023. "Social security reforms, retirement and sectoral decisions," FGV EPGE Economics Working Papers (Ensaios Economicos da EPGE) 838, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil).
    3. George Kudrna & John Piggott & Phitawat Poonpolkul, 2022. "Extending pension policy in emerging Asia: An overlapping-generations model analysis for Indonesia," CAMA Working Papers 2022-14, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    4. Anca-Stefania Jijiie & Jennifer Alonso Garcia & Séverine Arnold (-Gaille), 2019. "Mortality by socio-economic class and its impact on the retirement schemes: How to render the systems fairer?," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/300032, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Population aging; Sustainability; Social security; Means testing; Redistribution; Automatic stabilizer; Overlapping generations; Dynamic general equilibrium;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • C68 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Computable General Equilibrium Models

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