Bas van Groezen

Social security and endogenous fertility: pensions and child allowances as siamese twins

Abstract This paper analyses public pensions and child support in a model with endogenous fertility. We show that the individual fertility choice may not coincide with the social optimum, due to the existence of external effects of children on society as a whole. The market outcome without government intervention is efficient, however, as the externalities exactly cancel out in that case. If the government wants to redistribute towards the old, it cannot replicate the command optimum by merely applying lump-sum transfers, but rather needs a child allowance scheme to effectively alter the number of offspring. Finally, we analyse whether a Pareto-improving social security reform is possible. It is shown that merely reducing the PAYG-scheme cannot be Pareto-improving, but the introduction of a child allowance scheme can be.

Social capital and health across European countries

In this article we compare the effect of trust and civic participation on self-assessed health across 10 European countries. We find that, after controlling for a rich set of socio-economic characteristics, for actual health status and for health-related behaviours, trust has a significantly positive effect on perceived health in Sweden and Germany, but none in the other countries. Civic participation does have a positive and quite similar effect in all countries. Our conclusion is that they measure two different aspects of social capital that must be treated separately.

Increased Pension Savings: Blessing or Curse? Social Security Reform in a Two-Sector Growth Model

This paper analyses the consequences of a switch to a more funded pension scheme for economic growth in an economy that consists of a capital-intensive commodity sector with endogenous growth and a labour-intensive services sector. The increased savings cause long-run growth to be higher in a closed economy, provided capital and labour are not strong substitutes. The reverse holds for a small open economy. More funding can therefore turn out to be a curse instead of a blessing for future generations, unless countries implement their reforms simultaneously or impose a tax on labour-intensive services.

The Case for Pay-as-You-Go Pensions in a Service Economy

The elderly consume more labour-intensive services than young individuals. This makes them vulnerable to rising costs of services due to higher wages, which can be caused by increased capital accumulation. This paper shows that in a model with a service sector, the golden-rule capital stock is lower and dynamic inefficiency is more likely to occur than in the conventional one-sector model. This implies that in many cases, a positive Pay-As-You-Go tax maximises long-run welfare in a service economy. Calculations based on data from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands show that the long-run optimal degree of funding coincides with the current situation in these countries.

The Effects Of Asymmetric Demographic Shocks With Perfect Capital Mobility

In this paper we analyze the effects of asymmetric demographic shocks in a two-region framework with perfectly mobile capital. Regions may differ in their individual thriftiness or the generosity of their social security arrangements. We find that population aging in one region causes international spillover effects. Whether the aging region is a net lender or not appears to be of significant importance. Both the short-run dynamics and the long-run effects of an asymmetric demographic shock are discussed. Special attention is paid to the welfare effects for the different generations residing in either region.

At Whose Service? Subsidizing Services and the Skill Premium

In this paper we investigate the effects of subsidizing low-skilled, labourintensive services hired by high-skilled individuals in the presence of labour income taxation. Whether such a subsidy can be Paretoimproving depends crucially on the degree of substitutability of both types of labour in the non-service sector. In case of some substitutability, a service subsidy can benefit all and decrease inequality, but in case of complementarity, low-skilled individuals benefit and high-skilled individuals are worse off.

The Vulnerability of Social Security When Fertility is Endogenous

This paper analyses the effects of rumours and changes in life expectancy in an economywith endogenous fertility and pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pensions. We show that the endogeneity of fertility makes society vulnerable to both pessimistic beliefs and an increasing life span. On the one hand, rumours that pension benefits decrease appear to be self-fulfilling in the short run. On the other hand, increasing longevity deteriorates the PAYG pension scheme both in the short and in the long run, as the number of children permanently declines.

Benefits of EMU Participation: Estimates Using the Synthetic Control Method

This paper investigates quantitatively the benefits from participation in the Economic and Monetary Union for individual Euro area countries. Using the synthetic control method, we estimate how real GDP per capita would have developed for the EMU member states, if those countries had not joined the EMU. The estimates show that most countries have profited from having the euro, though the crisis leads to negative effects of EMU membership. The PIGS countries, in particular, would have been better off if they had not been an EMU member during the crisis, however, Greece, Portugal and Spain experienced the largest benefits of EMU participation in the pre-crisis period.

International trade with pensions and demographic shocks

The central question of this paper is how international trade and specialization are affected by different designs of pension schemes and asymmetric demographic changes. In a model with two goods, two countries and two production factors, we find that countries with a relatively large unfunded pension scheme will specialize in the production of labour intensive goods. If these countries are hit by a negative demographic shock, this specialization will intensify in the long run. Eventually, these countries may even completely specialize in the production of those goods. The effects spill over to other countries, which will move away from complete specialization in capital intensive goods as the relative size of their labour intensive goods sector will also increase.