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on Economics of Ageing |
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| By: | Silvia Borzutsky; Mark Hyde |
| Abstract: | Abstract This article addresses a recurring debate in social policy analysis, but with a contemporary twist. Which model of pension provision is most likely to augment the financial well-being of Chilean workers in retirement: social insurance or private savings? The analysis developed here evaluates both models against the requirements of justice and poverty reduction. The neoliberal rationale for pensions privatisation is typically articulated as a synthesis of deontological and consequentialist imperatives, emphasising the centrality of the individual’s inalienable rights, but permitting a degree of intrusive paternalism to diminish the prevalence of economic disadvantage among retirees. Our analysis of empirical evidence regarding pension design and outcomes in Chile suggests that privatisation has failed to meet the objectives that are shaped by this normative repertoire and in fact it has contributed to keeping almost 20 percent of the retirees below the poverty level. While it represents a fundamental departure from the free market model of neoliberalism, we find that a well-designed social insurance arrangement that is universal in scope, and redistributive, would augment the freedom of Chilean workers and also reduce poverty. |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bwp:bwppap:21415&r=age |
| By: | Frank T. Denton; Byron G. Spencer |
| Abstract: | Immigration is a possible instrument for offsetting longer-run adverse effects of population aging on per capita income. Our “laboratory” is a fictional country Alpha to which we assign demographic characteristics typical of a country experiencing population aging. Simulations indicate that a very high immigration rate with heavy concentration in younger working ages might be required to keep per capita income from declining. More rapid productivity growth would also offset population aging as would higher rates of labour participation of older people. Longer life expectancy, taken alone, would lower per capita real income, as would higher fertility rates. |
| Keywords: | immigration, per capita income, population aging, age structure, simulation |
| JEL: | J10 J11 J18 |
| Date: | 2015–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcm:deptwp:2015-14&r=age |
| By: | Marie-Louise Leroux; Dario Maldonado; Pierre Pestieau |
| Abstract: | We consider a political economy model in which agents have the possibility to hide part of their earnings in order to avoid taxation. Taxation is exclusively used to finance a pension system. If the pension system is implemented, agents in their old age receive a benefit which includes both a Bismarkian and a Beveridgian component. We show that in the absence of compliance costs, agents are indifferent to the tax rate level as in response, they can perfectly adapt their level of compliance. The public pension system is found to be at least partially contributory in order to increase compliance and thus to increase the tax base. When compliance costs are introduced, perfect substitutability between compliance and taxation breaks down. Depending on the relative returns from public pensions and private savings as well as on the elasticity of compliance to income, we obtain that the preferred tax rate should be increasing or decreasing in income. The majority voting tax rate is more likely to be positive when the median income is low and when the return from public pensions dominates that of private savings. The level of the Bismarkian pillar will now be chosen so as to account for increased political support, for increased direct redistribution toward the worst-off agent, and increased tax base. |
| Keywords: | Compliance costs, majority voting, public pensions, tax evasion, |
| JEL: | H55 I13 D91 |
| Date: | 2015–12–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirwor:2015s-52&r=age |
| By: | Mullen, Kathleen J.; Staubli, Stefan |
| Abstract: | A key component for estimating the optimal size and structure of disability insurance (DI) programs is the elasticity of DI claiming with respect to benefit generosity. Yet, in many countries, including the United States, all workers face identical benefit schedules, which are a function of one’s labor market history, making it difficult to separate the effect of the benefit level from the effect of unobserved preferences for work on individuals’ claiming decisions. To circumvent this problem, we exploit exogenous variation in DI benefits in Austria arising from several reforms to its DI and old age pension system in the 1990s and 2000s. We use comprehensive administrative social security records data on the universe of Austrian workers to compute benefit levels under six different regimes, allowing us to identify and precisely estimate the elasticity of DI claiming with respect to benefit generosity. We find that, over this time period, a one percent increase in potential DI benefits was associated with a 1.2 percent increase in DI claiming. |
| Keywords: | Benefit Generosity; Claiming Elasticity; Disability Insurance; Labor Force Withdrawal |
| JEL: | H55 J14 J22 |
| Date: | 2015–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10987&r=age |
| By: | Schünemann, Johannes; Strulik, Holger; Trimborn, Timo |
| Abstract: | Aging humans adapt to their worsening state of health and old people are usually happier than estimated by young individuals. In this paper we investigate how adaptation to a deteriorating state of health affects health spending, life expectancy, and the value of life. We set up a a life cycle model in which individuals are subject to physiological aging, calibrate it with data from gerontology, and compare behavior and outcomes of adapting and non-adapting individuals. While adaptation generally increases the value of life (by about 2 to 5 percent), its impact on health behavior and longevity depends crucially on whether individuals are aware of their adaptive behavior. |
| Keywords: | health,adaption,aging,longevity,health care demand |
| JEL: | D91 J17 J26 I12 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cegedp:268&r=age |
| By: | Beetz, Stephan; Voigt, Alexander; Gasch, Anna-Clara; Rodriguez-Abello, Sarah |
| Abstract: | Die Untersuchung des Wandels ländlicher Unterstützungsstrukturen erfolgt am Beispiel der Pflege an älteren Menschen. Dabei wird die hohe Bedeutung, aber auch die Belastung der familiären Pflege herausgearbeitet. Es werden alternative Ansätze im sogenannten Pflegemix, regionalen Pflegekulturen und gemeinwesenorientierten Pflegearrangements diskutiert. |
| Abstract: | The investigation of changing rural support networks is concentrated by the caregiver of elderly peoples. The study highlighted the importance, but also the stress of family care. We discuss alternative ways of multimodal care, regional cultures of caregiving and communitybased care systems. |
| Keywords: | Ländliche Räume,soziale Unterstützungsnetzwerke,Pflege,Soziale Arbeit,sozialer Wandel ländlicher Gesellschaften,rural regions,social support networks,social work,care,social change in rural societies |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:jhtire:324&r=age |
| By: | Rossi, Alberto G.; Blake, David; Timmermann, Allan; Tonks, Ian; Wermers, Russ |
| Abstract: | We analyze the relation between the location of a pension fund in its network and the investment performance, risk taking, and flows of the fund. Our approach analyzes the centrality of the fund's management company by examining the number of connections it has with other management companies through their commonality in managing for the same fund sponsors or through the same fund consultants. Network centrality is found to be positively associated with risk-adjusted return performance and growth in assets under management, after controlling for size and past performance, for domestic asset classes; however, we do not find this relation for foreign equity holdings. These findings indicate that local information advantages, which are much stronger among managers holding locally based stocks, exhibit positive externalities among connected managers. Of particular note is that we do not find that the centrality of a manager within one asset class (e.g., domestic bonds) helps the performance of the manager in another asset class (e.g., domestic equity), further indicating that our network analysis uncovers information diffusion effects. Network connections established through consultants are found to be particularly significant in explaining performance and fund flows, consistent with consultants acting as an important information conduit through which managers learn about each other's actions. Moreover, the importance of network centrality is strongest for larger funds, controlling for any economic scale effects. Better connected funds are also better able to attract higher net inflows for a given level of past return performance. Finally, more centrally placed fund managers are less likely to be fired after spells of low performance. Our results indicate that networks in asset management are one key source of the dissemination of private information about security values. |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cfrwps:1516&r=age |
| By: | Maarten Lindeboom (VU University Amsterdam); Reyn van Ewijk (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz) |
| Abstract: | There is increasing evidence that circumstances very early in our lives, and particularly during pregnancy, can affect our health for the remainder of life. Studies that have looked at this often used extreme situations such as famines that occurred during war times. Here we investigate whether less extreme situations during World War 2 also affected later life mortality for cohorts born in Belgium, France, The Netherlands and Norway. We argue that these occupied countries experienced a considerable deterioration in daily life situations and show that this resulted in strongly increased mortality rates and lower probabilities of survival until age 55 among civilian populations who had been prenatally exposed to war time circumstances. However, this mortality effect among the prenatally exposed is entirely concentrated in the first years of life, particularly infanthood. Once we condition on having survived the first years of life, those who had been prenatally exposed do not have higher mortality rates. This suggest that “culling” is important and that effects found in earlier studies may have been biased downward substantially. |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jgu:wpaper:1519&r=age |
| By: | Richard J. Manski; John F. Moeller; Haiyan Chen; Jody Schimmel Hyde; John V. Pepper; Patricia A. St. Clair |
| Abstract: | The authors analyze correlates of the direction and magnitude of changes in out-of-pocket (OOP) payments for dental care by older Americans over a recent 4-year period. |
| Keywords: | dental insurance, coverage, dental use, self-payments |
| JEL: | I |
| Date: | 2015–08–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:230eee5ffdd847f48db5688b21ccc413&r=age |