社会保险外文翻译).doc

1、外文文献原文Reintroducing Intergenerational Equilibrium: Key Conceptsbehind the New Polish Pension SystemBy: Marek Gra William Davidson Institute Working Paper Number 574June 2003AbstractPoland adopted a new pension system in 1999. This new pension system allows Poland to reduce pension expenditure (as a

2、percent of GDP), instead of increasing it as is projected for the majority of other OECD countries. This paper presents the conceptual background of the new system design. The new systems long-term bjective is to ensure intergenerational equilibrium irrespective of the demographic situation. This re

3、quires stabilisation of the share of GDP allocated to the entire retired generation. Traditional pension systems aim, instead, at stabilisation of the share of GDP per retiree. The change in demographic structure observed over the past for a couple of decades and this historic attempt to stabilise t

4、he share of GDP per retiree led to severe fiscal problems and negative externalities for growth, as observed in numerous countries. Many countries have tried to reform their pension systems in different ways to try to resolve the issue of these ever-increasing costs. Although the Polish reform uses

5、a number of techniques applied elsewhere, its design differs from the typical approaches and the lessons and results are promising for all OECD countries. This paper presents the theoretical and practical application of this alternative approach and as such, the key features of the new Polish pensio

6、n system design.IntroductionDemographic transition together with myopic policies has caused severe problems in the area of pensions in many countries around the world. Elements of traditional pension systems design include a weak link of benefits to contributions and the lack of control over costs o

7、f the system. Inclusion of these elements in the pension system design led to the explosion of costs, caused negative externalities for growth and contributed to persistently high unemployment. As such, the quest for pension reform is now on the top of policy agendas around the world, and especially

8、 in Europe. However, very few countries have been able to introduce fundamental reforms in the area of pensions to this time. In this case, the definition of reform is crucial. For the purposes of this paper, “reform” means changing the system in order to remove tructural inefficiencies and not just

9、 playing at the margins with contribution rates and retirement ages to adjust the systems parameters for short-term fiscal and political reasons.Traditional pension systems have proven to be inefficient in providing societies with social security. At the same time attempts to cure these systems are

10、hampered by a lack of consensus on what could replace the traditional system. Discussions on this issue involve confusion stemming from the ideological context of the discussion participants, as well as from overuse of such concepts as “pay-as-you-go” versus “funding”, or “public” versus “private”,

11、while at the same time ignoring a number of important economic issues.Furthermore, economists have traditionally ignored pensions. Designing and running pension systems was left to non-economists, who were not extensively concerned with how to finance pensions in the long-term or with how to counter

12、act these pension systems negative externalities. The new Polish pension system belongs to very small number of successful attempts to apply modern thinking in the area of pensions. This does not mean as some may assume giving up social security goals. Rather, the key idea was to give up the ineffic

13、ient methods of delivering social security in order to save its goals and principles.This paper consists of two parts. The first focuses on a discussion of general issues that need to be addressed when designing a pension system. These issues are presented in a way that goes beyond the traditional w

14、ay of thinking on pensions. In regards to this second part of the paper, it is important to point out that most countries in the current EU member states and candidate countries have pension systems that are essentially the same at the basic policy level. As such, the solutions in one member state o

15、r candidate country can be expected to be the same. Like European states such as France, Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, Hungary and other European states, Poland and Sweden over the past decades and until the late 1990s developed inefficient, costly pension systems. As such, in part two of the

16、paper we shall examine how Poland has now successfully implemented the approach presented in the first part of the paper, and created a fundamentally strong and neutral pension system.Selected general issuesPension system design has to take into account a number of issues. Their full presentation an

17、d discussion goes beyond the scope of this paper This paper presents only a list of the issues for consideration and the most important observations. The pension system: externalities versus neutrality The description of a pension system depends strongly on both the aggregated and individual viewpoi

18、nt. From the aggregated perspective, the pension system is a way of dividing current GDP between a part kept by the working generation and a part allocated to the retired generation. From the individual perspective, the pension system is a way of income allocation over a persons life cycle. The abov

19、e holds irrespective to the technical method applied or the ideological viewpoint. The pension system as defined above is not necessarily pay-as-you-go or funded. Such features stem from technical elements additionally applied on the top of the pension system, rather than from the system itself. If

20、the pension system design assumes anonymous participation and a substantial scale of redistribution then we usually call this system pay-as-you-go. If the pension system design uses financial markets, then we usually call it funded. However, these two typically used concepts do not exhaust all possi

21、ble combinations of anonymous versus individualised participation and financial versus non-financial pension system design techniques used. The dualistic pay-as-you-go versus funded approach leaves aside the combination of individual participation in a system that does not use financial markets. Thi

22、s approach also neglects the fact that using financial markets means investment (pension portfolio consists of private equities) or deferring taxes (pension portfolio consists of government bonds), which is obviously not the same. Adding redistribution or financial markets to the pension system gene

23、rates externalities. These externalities can be positive and negative. Redistribution within the pension system can generate positive externalities if the system is inexpensive, namely the part of GDP allocated to the retired generation is not large. If the redistribution is large, then it generates

24、 negative externalities, such as contributing to persistently high unemployment and weak growth. Using financial markets causes positive externalities for growth if the pension system spends contribution money on investment. If the contributions are spent on government debt they may lead to negative

25、 externalities similar to those of large redistributive system, namely more tax distortions. This can happen if the rate of return on government debt is persistently above the rate of GDP growth. There exists yet another option, namely to bring the pension system as close toeconomic neutrality as po

26、ssible. This option requires, among other things, combining individual participation in the system with dividing GDP between generations based on real economy developments, such as has been done in Poland and Sweden.Demographic structure: consequences of the change .Irrespective of the pension syste

27、m design technique used, the pension system exchanges a right of the retired generation for a part of the product of the working generation. The exchange can be organised in various ways and also the rights can be expressed in various ways. In particular, the rights can be either traded in the finan

28、cial markets, or defined in relation to some economic variables, or just based on political promise. In all of these cases there is a kind of market for pension rights. The working generation finances contributions in order to purchase the rights; the retired generation sells the rights in order to

29、get a part of the product of the working generation. The various types of pension systems create an institutional framework for this market. Given the contribution rate, the demand side of the market is determined by the number of workers and their productivity. The number of retirees determines the

30、 demand side. However, if as it is the case in traditional systems pensions are administratively defined in terms of wages (replacement rate promised) then the pension system depends solely on the demographic structure. Even strong productivity growth cannot help in balancing the systems revenue and

31、 expenditure. The general change of the demographic structure we see around the world has caused the pyramid scheme used for financing pension expenditure to no longer generate sufficient revenues. In consequence, previous minor inefficiencies have become devastating. Ageing turned the previous “pyr

32、amid-shape” demographic structure into a new “hut-shape” one, as illustrated in Figure 1.The pension system strongly depends on the demographic structure of the population. There is no escape from this dependency irrespective of pension system technique used. Using financial markets do not make pens

33、ion systems immune from this dependency. Financial markets do help, however, in adjusting the system to the current demographic situation by introducing an easy to understand and acceptable link between benefits and contributions paid. The general change of the demographic structure around the world

34、 has caused severe fiscal problems for many countries. This change can be seen also from the viewpoint of being able to achieve the traditional social goals of the pension system. In this regard, two important observations are worth mentioning: In the past, the minority nowadays the vast majority of

35、 those who pay contributions to the system as workers, afterwards receive benefits as retirees. This means that in the active phase of the individuals life, participation in the pension system is very similar to long term saving. As the goal is to provide for each individual, using the individual as

36、 the main accounting unit becomes a superior way to organize the pension system. In the past, the pension system channelled GDP to the very old people who were unable to earn a living and finance consumption on their own. Nowadays people who retire are still able to work and earn, and they on averag

37、e have many years of life left to live. As such, the discussion above shows that the objective of the pension system has changed for the old-age part of the pension system (OA). However, the non-old-age parts of social security systems (NOA), such as disability, remain risk related, irrespective to

38、ageing. This leads to the conclusion that the various parts of the social security system should be segmented, such that revenues (contributions) and expenses (benefits) can be tied to their purpose exclusively over time, and each segment insulated from each other. In this way, policy makers would b

39、e able to look at each segment of the social security system, knowing that its revenues and expenses have been insulated from the risks of other parts of the system and are an accurate reflection of the current state of that segment and together of the system as a whole. The social security system,

40、would then be made of an OA segment (pensions) and various NOA segments (disability, maternity, workers compensation, and so forth). This operational and accounting reform is one of the most important non-fiscal reasons for a deep pension reform and would provide policy makers with a powerful tool t

41、o understand how well their social security system can and will meet its goals.Pensions: Summary of the proposed approachTypically pension economics, as well as popular discussions, use the following opposing concepts as a central basis for thinking on pensions: Pay-as-you-go versus funding; Public

42、versus private; Monopillar versus multipillar.This paper presents an alternative approach. This alternative approach can be summarised in the following four pairs of opposing concepts: Universal (mandatory covering the entire population) versus partial (voluntary participation of a group of people);

43、 Individualised (individual accounts) versus anonymous (no accounts) participation; Task specific/segmented (OA separated from NOA) versus multitask (OA and NOA mixed within one scheme) organisation of social security; Financial (generating the rate of return through financial markets) versus nonfin

44、ancial (generating the rate of return through real economy growth). The efficient pension system is designed in a way that makes it endogenous, which means it adjusts automatically without intervening from outside. The system needs only one decision, namely the initial choice of the contribution rat

45、e. The way of thinking on pensions based on the above set of comparisons can be useful for better describing and analysing the pension system. This approach can also let the discussion on pensions go beyond the hopeless controversy of those who promote private funded pension funds and those who prom

46、ote what is called the pay-as-you-go system. As such policy makers in the European Union and elsewhere could benefit using the proposed methodology when looking at reforming their pension systems. Key features of the new Polish pension systemThe new Polish pension system design is a good example of

47、applying the above described way of thinking in practice. The system named “Security through Diversity” started on 1 January 1999. It entirely replaced previous regulations on oldage pensions for majority of working population. Designing the new system from scratch provided the unique opportunity to

48、 avoid complicating the system. Instead, the new system design is simple and transparent. The main goal was to design a system that can be neutral or at least close to neutrality for economic growth irrespective of population ageing. The design of the new system does not copy any other pension syste

49、m existing elsewhere. Strong similarity can be found only to the new Swedish pension system based on similar principles and started on the same day.16 At the same time, within this general framework the new Polish system uses a number of technical concepts developed in other countries. This brief presentation of the new Polish pension system focuses on the general economic design of the system, while leaving aside most technical details.The following