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Pension design with a large informal labor market: Evidence from Chile

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  • Clement Joubert

    (Department of Economics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Abstract

This paper investigates empirically the fiscal and welfare trade-offs involved in designing a pension system when workers can avoid participation by working informally. A dynamic behavioral model captures a household's labor supply, formal/informal sector choice and saving decisions under the rules of Chile's canonical privatized pension system. The parameters governing household preferences and earnings opportunities in the formal and the informal sector are jointly estimated using a longitudinal survey linked with administrative data from the pension system's regulatory agency. The parameter estimates imply that formal jobs rationing is limited and that mandatory pension contributions play an sizeable role in encouraging informality. Our policy experiments show that Chile could achieve a reduction of 23% of minimum pension costs, while guarantying the same level of income in retirement, by increasing the rate at which the benefits taper off.

Suggested Citation

  • Clement Joubert, 2014. "Pension design with a large informal labor market: Evidence from Chile," PIER Working Paper Archive 14-020, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    • Handle: RePEc:pen:papers:14-020
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    Cited by:

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    2. Danielyan, Vladimir & Polterovich, Victor, 2021. "Пенсионные Реформы И Теневой Сектор: Моделирование Поведения Доходных Групп [Pension reforms and the informal sector: modeling of income groups behavior]," MPRA Paper 110676, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Rodrigo Ceni, 2014. "Informality and government enforcement in Latin America," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 14-21, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    4. Alessandro Di Nola & Georgi Kocharkov & Aleksandar Vasilev, 2017. "Productivity, Taxation and Evasion: An Analysis of the Determinants of the Informal Economy," Bulgarian Economic Papers bep-2017-04, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski - Bulgaria // Center for Economic Theories and Policies at Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski, revised Apr 2017.
    5. Rodrigo Ceni, 2014. "Social security schemes and labor supply in the formal and informal sectors," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 14-12, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    6. Kathleen McKiernan, 2021. "Social Security Reform in the Presence of Informality," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 40, pages 228-251, April.
    7. Kathleen McKiernan, 2018. "Welfare Impact of Social Security Reform: The Case of Chile in 1981," 2018 Meeting Papers 253, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Sam Flanders & Melati Nungsari & Marcela Parada‐Contzen, 2020. "Pricing schemes and market efficiency in private retirement systems," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(4), pages 1041-1068, August.
    9. Di Nola Alessandro & Kocharkov Georgi & Vasilev Aleksandar, 2019. "Envelope wages, hidden production and labor productivity," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 19(2), pages 1-30, June.
    10. Joubert,Clement Jean Edouard, 2020. "Gender Pension Gaps in a Private Retirement Accounts System : A Dynamic Model of Household Labor Supply and Savings," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9322, The World Bank.
    11. Sergi Jiménez-Martín, 2014. "The incentive effects of minimum pensions," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 1-84, August.
    12. Damilola Olajide & Maria Laura Alzua & Ana Dammert & Olusegun Sotola & Thompson Ayodele, 2016. "Randomized Evaluation of the Unconditional Cash Transfer Scheme for the Elderly in Ekiti State Nigeria," Working Papers PIERI 2016-21, PEP-PIERI.
    13. Iain W. Long & Vito Polito, 2017. "Job Search, Unemployment Protection and Informal Work in Advanced Economies," CESifo Working Paper Series 6763, CESifo.
    14. Maria Laura Alzua & Natalia Cantet & Ana Dammert & Damilola Olajide, 2019. "Welfare Effects of a Non-Contributory Old Age Pension: Experimental Evidence for Ekiti State, Nigeria," Working Papers PIERI 2019-15, PEP-PIERI.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    pension reform; informality; segmentation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies
    • E26 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Informal Economy; Underground Economy
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements

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