Gilles Le Garrec

Social security, income inequality and growth

In most industrial countries, public pension systems redistribute from workers to retired people, not from high-income to low-income earners. They are close actuarial fairness. However, they are not all equivalent. In particular, some pension benefits are linked to full lifetime average earnings, while others are only linked to partial earnings history. In the latter case, we then show in this article that an actuarially fair pay-as-you-go pension system can both reduce lifetime income inequality and enhance economic growth. We also shed light on the dilemma between inequality and economic growth in retirement systems: greater progressivity results in less lifetime inequlity but also less growth.

Scenario for Global Aging - An Investigation with the INGENUE 2 World Model

This paper explores the consequences of pension reforms in Western Europe in a world economy setting. Whereas various economic and social consequences of population ageing have been investigated in OECD countries, very few analyses have explicitly taken the worldwide aspect of the problem into account. In order to do so, this report relies on the latest version of the INGENUE World Model (2). This applied, international, overlapping-generations, general-equilibrium model of the world economy has been built specifically to analyse the international capital flows and growth dynamics induced by the different degrees of population ageing taking place in the various regions of the world. After a description of the major features of the baseline scenario of the model for the world economy over the next 50 years, the authors explore the domestic and international macroeconomic consequences of two scenarios of pension reform in Western Europe as well as their intergenerational distributional effects. These scenarios are then compared with a specific migration scenario, making use of the new features of the INGENUE 2 model.

Macroeconomic Consequences of Global Endogenous Migration: a General Equilibrium Analysis

In this paper, we analyze the demographic and economic consequences of endogenous migrations flows over the coming decades in a multi-regions overlapping generations general equilibrium model (INGENUE 2) in which the world is divided in ten regions. Our analysis offers a global perspective on the consequences of international migration flows. The value-added of the INGENUE 2 model is that it enables us to analyze the effects of international migration on both the destination and the origin regions. A further innovation of our analysis is that international migration is treated as endogenous. In a first step, we estimate the determinants of migration in an econometric model. We show, in particular, that the income differential is one of the key variables explaining migration flows. In a second step, we endogenize migration flows in the INGENUE 2 model. In order to do so, we use the econometrically estimated relationships between demographic and income developments in the INGENUE model, which enables us to project long-run migration flows and to improve on projections of purely demographic models.

Increased longevity and social security reform: questioning the optimality of individual accounts when education matters

In many European countries, population aging had led to debate about a switch from conventional unfunded public pension systems to notional systems characterized by individual accounts. In this article, we develop an overlapping generations model in which endogenous growth is based on an accumulation of knowledge driven by the proportion of skilled workers and by the time they have spent in training. In such a framework, we show that conventional pension systems, contrary to notional systems, can enhance economic growth by linking benefits only to the partial earnings history. Thus, to ensure economic growth, the optimal adjustment to increased longevity could consist in increasing the size of existing retirement systems rather than switching to notional systems.

Differential mortality, aging and social security: delaying the retirement age when educational spillovers matter

To lower the forecasted increase in the social security burden linked to population aging, delaying the legal age of retirement has been privileged throughout industrialized countries. Compared with a uniform delay, some argue that those who have entered precociously the labor market should be allowed to retire earlier. They assert that such a ‘long career’ exception is all the more justified that those unskilled workers live also less long due to heavier and potentially health-damaging jobs. In this paper, we then study macroeconomic and distributional consequences of global gain in life expectancy, with or without the postponement of the legal age of retirement and with or without a ‘long career’ exception. By considering a framework where individuals decide to acquire skills depending on economic incentives and differential mortality, we focus particularly on spillover effects possibly generated by education. We show in particular that introducing a ‘long career’ exception cannot be to the advantage of future unskilled workers unless education yields no spillover effects.

Fairness, social norms and the cultural demand for redistribution

When studying attitudes towards redistribution, surveys show that individuals do care about fairness. They also show that the cultural environment in which people grow up affects their preferences about redistribution. In this article we include these two components of the demand for redistribution in order to develop a mechanism for the cultural transmission of the concern for fairness. The preferences of the young are partially shaped through the observation and imitation of others’ choices. More specifically, observing during childhood how adults have collectively failed to implement fair redistributive policies lowers the concern during adulthood for fairness or the moral cost of not supporting fair taxation. Based on this mechanism, the model exhibits a multiplicity of history-dependent stationary states that may account for the huge and persistent differences in redistribution observed between Europe and the United States. It also explains why immigrants from countries with a preference for greater redistribution continue to support higher redistribution in their destination country.When studying attitudes towards redistribution, surveys show that individuals do care about fairness. They also show that the cultural environment in which people grow up affects their preferences about redistribution. In this article we include these two components of the demand for redistribution in order to develop a mechanism for the cultural transmission of the concern for fairness. The preferences of the young are partially shaped through the observation and imitation of others’ choices. More specifically, observing during childhood how adults have collectively failed to implement fair redistributive policies lowers the concern during adulthood for fairness or the moral cost of not supporting fair taxation. Based on this mechanism, the model exhibits a multiplicity of history-dependent stationary states that may account for the huge and persistent differences in redistribution observed between Europe and the United States. It also explains why immigrants from countries with a preference for greater redistribution continue to support higher redistribution in their destination country.