Privatizing Social SecurityMartin Feldstein University of Chicago Press, 1998 - 471 pages This volume represents the most important work to date on one of the pressing policy issues of the moment: the privatization of social security. Although social security is facing enormous fiscal pressure in the face of an aging population, there has been relatively little published on the fundamentals of essential reform through privatization. Privatizing Social Security fills this void by studying the methods and problems involved in shifting from the current system to one based on mandatory saving in individual accounts. "Timely and important. . . . [Privatizing Social Security] presents a forceful case for a radical shift from the existing unfunded, pay-as-you-go single national program to a mandatory funded program with individual savings accounts. . . . An extensive analysis of how a privatized plan would work in the United States is supplemented with the experiences of five other countries that have privatized plans." —Library Journal "[A] high-powered collection of essays by top experts in the field."—Timothy Taylor, Public Interest |
Contents
The Chilean Pension Reform A Pioneering Program | 33 |
Australias Retirement Income System | 63 |
The Roles of the Public and Private Sectors in the UK Pension System | 99 |
Pension System Reform The Mexican Case | 135 |
The Shift to a Funded Social Security System The Case of Argentina | 177 |
The Transition Path in Privatizing Social Security | 215 |
Simulating the Privatization of Social Security in General Equilibrium | 265 |
Privatizing Social Security FirstRound Effects of a Generic Voluntary Privatized US Social Security System | 313 |
Individual Financial Decisions in Retirement Saving Plans and the Provision of Resources for Retirement | 363 |
Administrative Costs in Public and Private Retirement Systems | 403 |
Contributors | 457 |
| 459 | |
| 463 | |
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Common terms and phrases
accumulated administrative costs AFJP AFPs analysis Andrew Samwick annuity Argentina asset allocation average basic state pension basis points billion bonds calculations Chile Chilean cohort consumption tax deadweight loss deficit defined-benefit defined-contribution disability earnings Economic effect employees equity expenses Feldstein funded system gain growth higher IMSS income tax increase indexed individual retirement accounts investment Jeffrey Liebman Kotlikoff labor supply lump sum managed mandatory MIRA contributions mutual funds participants pay-as-you-go PAYGO payroll tax pension funds pension plans pension reform pension system percent of GDP percentage personal pensions portfolio present value privatized system privatizing social security rate of return real interest rate reduced result retirement saving retirement system revenue Samwick sector SERPS simulations social security benefits social security system spouse and survivor superannuation survivor benefits Table tax financing tax rate TIAA-CREF tion transition trust fund wage workers Yprog 55
Popular passages
Page 16 - ... present value. That skepticism would be warranted in a static economy but is not appropriate when economic growth is continually enlarging the size of the Social Security liability. Shifting from an unfunded program to a funded one is an application of the general principle that, when you discover you are in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging. Shifting to a funded system eliminates the future losses associated with future increases in the size of Social Security wealth. In the first...