IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/93128.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Social Security Fallacy

Author

Listed:
  • Homburg, Stefan

Abstract

The article investigates whether compulsory old age provisions are justified from an economic point of view. According to a standard argument, some people would not provide sufficiently for their old age in the absence of a compulsory pension system – they would become a charge to the public. This free rider problem can be solved by mandatory lump sum contributions. However, if contributions depend on labour income, as they do in reality, potential free riders consider them as payroll taxes – even if the pension system is fully funded and actuarially fair. Therefore, compulsory contributions which are related to earned income do not solve an economic problem which cannot be tackled by the tax system as well. Put differently, there exists no economic justification for compulsory contributions, the standard argument is false.

Suggested Citation

  • Homburg, Stefan, 2000. "A Social Security Fallacy," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 409-419.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:93128
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/93128/1/Homburg2000Fallacy.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Feldstein, 1985. "The Optimal Level of Social Security Benefits," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 100(2), pages 303-320.
    2. Homburg, Stefan, 2000. "Compulsory savings in the welfare state," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 233-239, August.
    3. Kotlikoff, Laurence J & Spivak, Avia & Summers, Lawrence H, 1982. "The Adequacy of Savings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(5), pages 1056-1069, December.
    4. Coate, Stephen, 1995. "Altruism, the Samaritan's Dilemma, and Government Transfer Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 46-57, March.
    5. J. A. Mirrlees, 1971. "An Exploration in the Theory of Optimum Income Taxation," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 38(2), pages 175-208.
    6. Diamond, P. A., 1977. "A framework for social security analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 275-298, December.
    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. Breyer, Friedrich & Franz, Wolfgang & Homburg, Stefan & Schnabel, Reinhold & Wille, Eberhard, 2004. "Reform der sozialen Sicherung: Kurzfassung," EconStor Books, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 92399.

    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. Homburg, Stefan, 2000. "Compulsory savings in the welfare state," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 233-239, August.
    2. Jakob von Weizsäcker, 2003. "The Hayek Pension: An efficient minimum pension to complement the welfare state," CESifo Working Paper Series 1064, CESifo.
    3. Casey Mulligan & Tomas Philipson, "undated". "Merit Motives and Government Intervention: Public Finance in Reverse," University of Chicago - Population Research Center 2000-03, Chicago - Population Research Center.
    4. Ayşe İmrohoroğlu & Selahattin İmrohoroğlu & Douglas H. Joines, 2003. "Time-Inconsistent Preferences and Social Security," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 118(2), pages 745-784.
    5. Itzik Fadlon & David Laibson, 2017. "Paternalism and Pseudo-Rationality," NBER Working Papers 23620, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Sanna Tenhunen & Matti Tuomala, 2010. "On Optimal Lifetime Redistribution Policy," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(1), pages 171-198, February.
    7. Amihai Glazer & Hiroki Kondo, 2015. "Governmental transfers and altruistic private transfers," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(2), pages 509-533, April.
    8. Casey B. Mulligan & Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 1999. "Social Security in Theory and Practice (II): Efficiency Theories, Narrative Theories, and Implications for Reform," NBER Working Papers 7119, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. T. Findley & Frank Caliendo, 2008. "The behavioral justification for public pensions: a survey," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 32(4), pages 409-425, October.
    10. Manuel Amador & Iván Werning & George-Marios Angeletos, 2006. "Commitment vs. Flexibility," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(2), pages 365-396, March.
    11. Matti Tuomala & Sanna Tenhunen, 2013. "On the design of an optimal non-linear tax/pension system with habit formation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 20(3), pages 485-512, June.
    12. Vicky Barham & Rose Anne Devlin & Olga Milliken, 2016. "Genetic Health Risks: The Case for Universal Public Health Insurance," Working Papers 1605E, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.
    13. MOUNA BEN OTHMAN & Mohamed Ali MAROUANI, 2016. "Labor Market Effects of Pension Reform :an overlapping genenrations general equilibrium model applied to Tunisia," EcoMod2016 9294, EcoMod.
    14. Sheng-Cheng Hu, 1996. "Myopia and Social Security Financing," Public Finance Review, , vol. 24(3), pages 319-348, July.
    15. Brown, Jeffrey R., 2001. "Private pensions, mortality risk, and the decision to annuitize," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 29-62, October.
    16. Kerstin Roeder, 2014. "Optimal taxes and pensions with myopic agents," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 42(3), pages 597-618, March.
    17. Jean-Denis Garon & Pier-Andre Bouchard St-Amant, 2013. "Optimal Redistributive Pensions With Temptation And Costly Self-control," Working Paper 1311, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    18. R. Glenn Hubbard, 1987. "Uncertain Lifetimes, Pensions, and Individual Saving," NBER Chapters, in: Issues in Pension Economics, pages 175-210, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. David E. Bloom & David Canning & Michael Moore, 2007. "A Theory of Retirement," PGDA Working Papers 2607, Program on the Global Demography of Aging.
    20. Hurst, Erik & Willen, Paul, 2007. "Social security and unsecured debt," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(7-8), pages 1273-1297, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social security; Public pensions;

    JEL classification:

    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions

    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:zbw:espost:93128. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.