Funded Social Security Systems: A Review of Issues in Four East Asian Countries
Keywords:
funded pensions, East Asia, replacement rates, population coverage, financial markets, pay-as-you-goAbstract
This paper reviews the structure and economic effects of the fully-funded centralized public pension programs in several East Asian countries. The major weaknesses of these programs are variable and often inadequate replacement rates as well as poor population coverage. Aside from encouraging development of financial markets, their chief virtue is their avoidance of economic distortions associated with the alternative pay-as-you-go approach. Growth-modeling exercises surveyed in the paper suggest that such distortions are the main way in which social security affects aggregate welfare in the long run. The paper therefore argues that expected pay-as-you-go based reforms should involve introduction of minimal flat-rate schemes as supplements to the existing systems.Downloads
References
American survey: The folly of raiding the piggy-bank. (1989, 8 de abril). The Economist, 49–50.
Asher, M. G. (1985). Forced saving to finance merit goods: An economic analysis of the Central Provident Fund (Occasional Paper N.º 36). Centre for Research on Federal Financial Relations, The Australian National University.
Auerbach, A. J., & Kotlikoff, L. J. (1987). Dynamic fiscal policy. Cambridge University Press.
Carroll, C. D., & Weil, D. N. (1993). Saving and growth: A reinterpretation (NBER Working Paper N.º 4470). National Bureau of Economic Research.
Chandavarkar, A. (1993). Saving behaviour in the Asian-Pacific region. Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, 7(1), 9–27.
Corsetti, G., & Schmidt-Hebbel, K. (1994). Pension reform and growth [Ponencia]. Conference on Pensions: Funding, Privatization and Macroeconomic Policy, Universidad Católica de Chile.
Datta, G., & Shome, P. (1981). Social security and household savings: Asian experience. The Journal of Institute of Developing Economies, 19(2). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1746-1049.1981.tb00429.x
Dixon, J. (1989). A comparative study on provident funds: Their present and future explored. Journal of International and Comparative Social Welfare, 5(2), 1–28.
Hagemann, R. P., & Nicoletti, G. (1989). Population ageing: Economic effects and some policy implications for financing public pensions. OECD Economic Studies, (12).
Hirtz, F. (1992). Formal social security in selected Asian countries. In Getubig & Schmidt (Eds.), Rethinking social security: Reaching out to the poor. Asian and Pacific Development Centre.
International Labour Office. (1987). L'investissement des fonds de la sécurité sociale dans les pays en développement.
International Labour Office. (1992). The cost of social security, thirteenth international inquiry, 1984-1986.
King, R. G., & Levine, R. (1994). Capital fundamentalism, economic development, and economic growth [Mimeo]. International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Lane, T. (1993). Market discipline. IMF Staff Papers, 40(1), 53–88.
Lim, C. Y., et al. (1986). Report of the Central Provident Fund Study Group. Singapore Economic Review, 31(1).
Mesa-Lago, C. (1992). Comparative analysis of Asia and Latin American social security systems. In Getubig & Schmidt (Eds.), Rethinking social security: Reaching out to the poor. Asian and Pacific Development Centre.
Otani, I., & Villanueva, D. (1988). Determinants of long-term growth performance in developing countries (IMF Working Paper N.º WP/88/97). International Monetary Fund.
Queisser, M. (1991). Social security systems in South-East Asia. International Social Security Review, 44(1-2), 121–134.
Shome, P. (1986). Fiscal issues in South-East Asia. Oxford University Press.
Shome, P., & Saito, K. A. (1979). Social security institutions and capital creation: Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, India and Sri Lanka. Sritua Arief and Associates.
Shome, P., & Squire, L. (1983). Alternative mechanisms for financing social security (World Bank Staff Working Paper N.º 625). The World Bank.
Tyabji, A. (1993). Social security in the Asian-Pacific region. Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, 7(1), 53–72. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8411.1993.tb00083.x
United States Social Security Administration. (1990). Social security programs throughout the world, 1989.
Vittas, D. (1993). The simple(r) algebra of pension plans. Financial Sector Department, World Bank.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 1994 Frederick Ribe
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Article usage
- ViewsTimes this article's page was opened since the journal started recording statistics. One person can visit more than once.
- 123
- DownloadsTimes the full text of this article (usually the PDF) was opened or downloaded.
- 158
All time, as recorded by the journal.
Last 2 years: 38 views, 92 downloads.
1.28 downloads per view (journal average 1.65).Downloads of the full text for every abstract view of this article, compared with the whole journal.
Explore the journal's metrics
