Fabian Kindermann

Pension Funding and Individual Accounts in Economies with Life-Cyclers and Myopes

The present paper studies the growth and efficiency consequences of pension funding with individual retirement accounts in a general equilibrium overlapping generations model with idiosyncratic lifespan and labor income uncertainty. We distinguish between economies with rational and hyperbolic consumers and compare the consequences of voluntary and mandatory retirement plans. Three major findings are derived in our study: First, we quantify the commitment effect of social security for myopic individuals by roughly 1 percent of aggregate resources. It is possible to recapture this commitment technology in IRAs, if those are annuitized. Second, despite the fact that our consumers have an operative bequest motive, the welfare gain from the (implicit) longevity insurance of the pension system is significant and amounts to roughly 0.5 percent of aggregate resources. However, mandatory annuitization reduces unintended bequests so that future generations are significantly hurt. Finally, our results highlight the importance of liquidity effects for social security analysis. These efficiency gains are only attainable if accounts are voluntary and not mandatory.

Pension reform with variable retirement age: a simulation analysis for Germany

In 2007 Germany has introduced a pension reform which increases the normal retirement age from currently age 65 to 67. The present study aims to quantify the macroeconomic, welfare and efficiency consequences of this reform by means of a computable general equilibrium model with overlapping generations. Our model features the most recent demographic projections and distinguishes three skill classes with different life expectancies within generations. Most importantly, individuals choose their effective age when they exit from the labor market and start receiving pension benefits. Our quantitative analysis indicates three central results: First, the previously implemented pension reductions are not able to stabilize long-run contribution rates and increase future old-age poverty rates in Germany considerably. Second, the considered reform will increase effective retirement age by about one year and redistribute towards future cohorts. However, it hardly reduces old-age poverty since rich people are more flexible in adjusting retirement. Overall, the efficiency gains of the reform are very modest. Third, supplementary policy should raise the actuarial adjustment factor while other reform packages aimed to reduce old-age poverty may be associated with significant efficiency cost.

High Marginal Tax Rates on the Top 1%? Lessons from a Life Cycle Model with Idiosyncratic Income Risk

In this paper we argue that very high marginal labor income tax rates are an effective tool for social insurance even when households have preferences with high labor supply elasticity, make dynamic savings decisions, and policies have general equilibrium effects. To make this point we construct a large scale Overlapping Generations Model with uninsurable labor productivity risk, show that it has a wealth distribution that matches the data well, and then use it to characterize fiscal policies that achieve a desired degree of redistribution in society. We find that marginal tax rates on the top 1% of the earnings distribution of close to 90% are optimal. We document that this result is robust to plausible variation in the labor supply elasticity and holds regardless of whether social welfare is measured at the steady state only or includes transitional generations.

Tax-Favored Retirement Accounts: Are they Efficient in Increasing Savings and Growth?

The present paper aims to quantify the macroeconomic and welfare effects of taxfavored retirement accounts. Starting from an equilibrium without saving incentives, we introduce such accounts and compute the new transition path and the resulting long-run equilibrium. Since our overlapping-generations model comprises a detailed progressive tax system, borrowing constraints as well as stochastic income risk, we can compare macroeconomic and liquidity effects, tax distortions and the insurance properties of the policy reform. Our simulations indicate that tax-favored retirement accounts as implemented in many OECD countries will have a significant impact on capital accumulation and wage growth in the long run, but only yield insignificant aggregate efficiency changes. While elderly generations are typically hurt by such a reform, young and future generations benefit. Finally, with respect to the intragenerational redistribution, a subsidy system that includes direct bonus payments might be preferred to a system with pure tax deductions.

Pension Funding and Individual Accounts in Economies with Life-cyclers and Myopes

The present article studies the growth and efficiency consequences of pension funding with individual retirement accounts (IRAs) in a general equilibrium overlapping generations model with idiosyncratic lifespan and labor income uncertainty. We distinguish between economies with rational and hyperbolic consumers and compare the consequences of voluntary and mandatory retirement plans. Three major findings are derived in our study: first, we quantify the commitment effect of social security for myopic individuals by roughly 1% of aggregate resources. It is possible to recapture this commitment technology in IRAs, if those are annuitized. Second, despite the fact that our consumers have an operative bequest motive, the welfare gain from the (implicit) longevity insurance of the pension system is significant and amounts to roughly 0.5% of aggregate resources. However, mandatory annuitization reduces unintended bequests so that future generations are significantly hurt. Finally, our results highlight the importance of liquidity effects for social security analysis. These efficiency gains are only attainable if accounts are voluntary and not mandatory. (JEL codes: H55, J26) Copyright The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Ifo Institute for Economic Research, Munich. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org, Oxford University Press.

Generational Policy and Aging in Closed and Open Dynamic General Equilibrium Models

This chapter examines the micro- and macroeconomic effects of generational policies using closed and open general equilibrium dynamic life-cycle models. The models illustrate the broad array of demographic, economic, and policy issues that can be simultaneously incorporated within today’s computable models of economic growth. The list includes country-specific tax, spending, social security, healthcare policy, deficit policy age-cohort- and country-specific mortality, age-specific fertility, age-specific morbidity, lifespan uncertainty, age- and skill-specific emigration and immigration, earnings inequality driven by skill differences and idiosyncratic labor earnings uncertainty, capital adjustment costs, international trade, international capital flows, trade specialization, and trade policy. The chapter begins with the benchmark dynamic overlapping generations (OLG) simulation model of Auerbach and Kotlikoff (1987), discusses various advances in OLG simulation modeling and then presents two applications. The first is a closed-economy model, calibrated for Germany, that features idiosyncratic labor earnings uncertainty and changes in demographics. After running the model through a number of policy simulations, we turn to an open-economy model, featuring five regions (the US, Europe, Japan and other Asian countries, China, and India) producing six goods, some of which are traded. We use this model to quantify how economies will transition over time, how wage inequality will evolve, how tax rates will change in light of societal aging and how various unilateral and multilateral policy reforms impact the six regions.

Should pensions be progressive? Yes, at least in Germany!

Recent reforms that aim at reducing the upcoming burdens of population ageing might seriously harm low income individuals. An increase in old-age poverty and disability will be the result. Under this prospect, the present paper quantitatively characterizes the optimal progressivity of unfunded pension systems in an overlapping generations model with idiosyncratic income, disability and longevity risk as well as endogenous labor supply at the intensive and extensive margin. Focusing on the German pension system, our model features the most recent demographic projections and distinguishes three skill classes with skill-dependent risk profiles. Starting from a baseline path that reflects a purely earnings related pension system, we increase the degree of progressivity and compute the resulting macroeconomic, welfare and efficiency effects. For our most preferred parametrization we find an optimal flat-rate pension share of 40 percent. This indicates that in Germany recent reforms that aim at raising retirement age and cutting benefit levels should be complemented by increases in pension progressivity, since improved insurance provision dominates higher labor supply distortions. In addition, we also find that reductions in the benefit level (i.e. privatization) will only reduce economic efficiency.

Earnings related pension schemes and human capital formation

In this paper, I show that traditional earnings related pay-as-you-go pension systems as we see them in many OECD countries subsidize human capital formation. The reason is that these systems come along with an implicit tax structure that features high tax rates at the beginning of working life and low tax rates toward the end. When the costs of human capital investment are mainly time costs, such an implicit tax structure lowers the costs of human capital investments and simultaneously increases the payoff. The fact that higher skilled workers tend to have steeper wage profiles over the working phase than the unskilled enforces this mechanism. I first show this result in a simple analytical model and then quantify the macroeconomic and welfare effects of making the implicit tax structure age independent in a large-scale overlapping generation model, in which households can invest in human capital both by going to college and through on-the-job training. In terms of welfare, such a reform comes along with a lot of intergenerational redistribution. Although the welfare of current retirees may increase by about 4.5% of their remaining life-time resources, current older workers will lose due to an increase in their implicit tax rates. The welfare of future generations slightly declines by 0.1%.

Welfare Effects of Privatizing Public Education When Human Capital Investments Are Risky

In an overlapping-generations model with risky human capital investment, borrowing constraints, and intergenerational transmission of abilities, I examine the effects of a change from publicly to privately funded college education. I find that from this reform, college graduates are better off compared to other workers since the college wage premium increases by around 50 percent. The reform deteriorates aggregate efficiency by (i) enforcing liquidity constraints, (ii) abolishing public insurance provision against educational risk, and (iii) increasing utility costs of college education via intergenerational spillovers. A success-dependent student loan system can offset efficiency losses but fails to generate efficiency gains.

Public versus Private Education with Risky Human Capital

This paper studies the long-run macroeconomic, distributional and welfare effects of tuition policy and student loans. We therefore form a rich model of risky human capital investment based on the seminal work of Heckman, Lochner and Taber (1998). We extend their original model by variable labor supply, borrowing constraints, idiosyncratic wage risk, uncertain life-span, and multiple schooling decisions. This allows us to build a direct link between students and their parents and make the initial distribution of people over different socio-economic backgrounds endogenous. Our simulation indicate that privatization of tertiary education comes with a vast reduction in the number of students, an increase in the college wage premium and longrun welfare losses of around 5 percent. Surprisingly, we find that from privatization of tertiary education, students are better off compared to workers from other educational classes, since the college wage premium nearly doubles. In addition, our model predicts that income contingent loans on which students don’t have to pay interest, improve the college enrolment situation for agents from all kinds of backgrounds.