IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/swe/wpaper/2009-06.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fertility Decisions and the Sustainability of Defined Benefit Pay-as-You-Go Pension Systems

Author

Listed:
  • Miriam Steurer

    (School of Economics, The University of New South Wales)

Abstract

The sustainability of a defined benefit pay-as-you-go (DBPAYG) pension system is investigated in the context of an overlapping-generations model of endogenous fertility with heterogeneous agents. The model places particular emphasis on the time costs of child rearing. It illustrates the mechanism by which such a pension system can increase the opportunity cost of having children and hence sow the seeds of its own destruction. The model is then extended to allow for fertility-based payments. Such a system is more likely to be sustainable. The model highlights a number of issues that are of relevance to a number of OECD countries that have generous DBPAYG pension systems and falling fertility rates.

Suggested Citation

  • Miriam Steurer, 2009. "Fertility Decisions and the Sustainability of Defined Benefit Pay-as-You-Go Pension Systems," Discussion Papers 2009-06, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
  • Handle: RePEc:swe:wpaper:2009-06
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://research.economics.unsw.edu.au/RePEc/papers/2009-06.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:dau:papers:123456789/11047 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Martin Kolmar, 1997. "Intergenerational redistribution in a small open economy with endogenous fertility," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 10(3), pages 335-356.
    3. Disney, Richard, 2000. "Crises in Public Pension Programmes in OECD: What Are the Reform Options?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(461), pages 1-23, February.
    4. Cigno, Alessandro & Luporini, Annalisa & Pettini, Anna, 2003. "Transfers to families with children as a principal-agent problem," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(5-6), pages 1165-1177, May.
    5. Martin Feldstein, 1985. "The Optimal Level of Social Security Benefits," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 100(2), pages 303-320.
    6. Cigno, Alessandro, 1993. "Intergenerational transfers without altruism : Family, market and state," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 505-518, November.
    7. Berthold U. Wigger, 1999. "Public Pensions and Growth," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 56(2), pages 241-241, June.
    8. Nishimura, Kazuo & Zhang, Junsen, 1992. "Pay-as-you-go public pensions with endogenous fertility," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 239-258, July.
    9. Cigno, Alessandro & Rosati, Furio C., 1996. "Jointly determined saving and fertility behaviour: Theory, and estimates for Germany, Italy, UK and USA," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(8), pages 1561-1589, November.
    10. Rosati, Furio Camillo, 1996. "Social security in a non-altruistic model with uncertainty and endogenous fertility," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 283-294, May.
    11. Manfred Koch & Christian Thimann, 1999. "From Generosity to Sustainability: The Austrian Pension System and Options for its Reform," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 26(1), pages 21-38, March.
    12. Philipp C. Rother & Marco Catenaro & Gerhard Schwab, 2004. "Aging and Pensions in the Euro Area," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 60(4), pages 593-593, December.
    13. Nishimura, Kazuo & Zhang, Junsen, 1995. "Sustainable Plans of Social Security with Endogenous Fertility," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 47(1), pages 182-194, January.
    14. Berthold U. Wigger, 1999. "Pay-as-you-go financed public pensions in a model of endogenous growth and fertility," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 12(4), pages 625-640.
    15. Boris Cournède & Frédéric Gonand, 2006. "Restoring Fiscal Sustainability in the Euro Area: Raise Taxes or Curb Spending?," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 520, OECD Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Cigno, A., 2016. "Conflict and Cooperation Within the Family, and Between the State and the Family, in the Provision of Old-Age Security," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 609-660, Elsevier.
    2. Meier, Volker & Wrede, Matthias, 2010. "Pensions, fertility, and education," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(1), pages 75-93, January.
    3. Vincenzo Galasso & Roberta Gatti & Paola Profeta, 2009. "Investing for the old age: pensions, children and savings," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 16(4), pages 538-559, August.
    4. Peter J. Stauvermann & Ronald R. Kumar, 2016. "Sustainability of A Pay-as-you-Go Pension System in A Small Open Economy with Ageing, Human Capital and Endogenous Fertility," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(1), pages 2-20, February.
    5. Robert Fenge & Volker Meier, 2005. "Pensions and fertility incentives," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 38(1), pages 28-48, February.
    6. Filoso, Valerio & Papagni, Erasmo, 2015. "Fertility choice and financial development," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 160-177.
    7. Michele BOLDRIN & Mariacristina DE NARDI & Larry E. JONES, 2015. "Fertility and Social Security," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(3), pages 261-299, September.
    8. Giam Cipriani, 2014. "Population aging and PAYG pensions in the OLG model," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 27(1), pages 251-256, January.
    9. Richard C. Barnett & Joydeep Bhattacharya & Mikko Puhakka, 2018. "Private versus public old-age security," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(3), pages 703-746, July.
    10. Yang Zaigui, 2005. "Pay-As-You-Go Public Pension Systems: Two-sided Altruism and Endogenous Growth," Asia-Pacific Journal of Risk and Insurance, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-13, June.
    11. Siew Ling Yew & Jie Zhang, 2018. "Health spending, savings and fertility in a lifecycle‐dynastic model with longevity externalities," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(1), pages 186-215, February.
    12. John William Hatfield, 2008. "Backward Intergenerational Goods and Endogenous Fertility," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 10(5), pages 765-784, October.
    13. Yang, Zaigui, 2007. "Partially Funded Pension, Fertility and Endogenous Growth," MPRA Paper 18681, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Miriam Steurer, 2009. "Extending the Aaron Condition for Alternative Pay-as-You-Go Pension Systems," Discussion Papers 2009-03, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    15. Koichi Miyazaki, 2013. "Pay-as-you-go social security and endogenous fertility in a neoclassical growth model," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(3), pages 1233-1250, July.
    16. Isaac Ehrlich & Jinyoung Kim, 2005. "Social Security, Demographic Trends, and Economic Growth: Theory and Evidence from the International Experience," NBER Working Papers 11121, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Cipriani, Giam Pietro & Fioroni, Tamara, 2022. "Social security and endogenous demographic change: child support and retirement policies," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(3), pages 307-325, July.
    18. Thomas Davoine, 2023. "The joint macroeconomic impacts of capital markets integration and fertility," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 687-720, May.
    19. Cigno, Alessandro & Camillio Rosati, Furio, 1997. "Rise and fall of the Japanese saving rate: The role of social security and intra-family transfers," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 81-92, March.
    20. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:10:y:2008:i:8:p:1-7 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Luciano Fanti & Luca Gori, 2014. "Endogenous fertility, endogenous lifetime and economic growth: the role of child policies," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 27(2), pages 529-564, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Pay-as-you-go pension; Defined benefit; Overlapping generations; Endogenous fertility; Labor participation Rate; Heterogeneous agents;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:swe:wpaper:2009-06. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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: Hongyi Li (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/senswau.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.