Patricia Peinado

A dynamic analysis of the effects on pensioners’ welfare of social security reforms

The aim of this paper is to analyze the dynamic effects of the different parametric reforms oriented to reach the financial balance of public pension systems on the well-being of the retired population. Using the Spanish social security system as a case study, a duration analysis is implemented to look for a causal relationship and then estimate separately the effects of an effective retirement age delay and a replacement rate reduction as well as the combined effect of these two measures. We also estimate the effects of a delay on the reforms. We find that a change in the effective retirement age would have positive effects on the individual welfare of retired population, while a reduction of the replacement rate would diminish it. The combined effect of the two measures would finally translate into a welfare lost of the retired population. The delay on the reforms implies higher welfare loss (to the affected generations) than the analyzed reforms.

A Dynamic Gender Analysis of Spain's Pension Reforms of 2011

Abstract Gender differences in the labor market have been widely studied and discussed in terms of both research and public policy. One of the contributions of feminist economics has been to analyze and demonstrate links between gendered labor market experience and retirement incomes. This paper presents a methodology to study the dynamics of gender differences among retirees in Spain. The study provides a way to predict the effects of government policies proposed in 2011 that change the institutional framework of social security systems in an effort to address the fiscal challenges of an aging population.

Financial Systems in Financial Crisis – An Analysis of Banking Systems in the EU

The goal of this paper is twofold. First, we describe briefly the French banking sector, presenting its main development since the 1980s and its key characteristics. Second, we analyse the consequences of the financial crisis on the French economy and its banks. In particular, we emphasise the resilience of the French banking model, as no major bankruptcy has occurred in the banking sector since 2008 and private agents have continued to finance their activity without intense credit rationing. However, concerns over the soundness of the French financial system remain unaddressed.

Gender Inequality in the Labour Market and the Great Recession

The study of labour market gender inequalities has been and still is an issue of major relevance. Although gender equality has become a goal in political agendas worldwide, there is empirical evidence showing the persistence of gender differences. The gender employment and unemployment gaps and the ‘gender pay gap’ support this persistence. Additionally, during the last decade, the Great Recession has exerted a detrimental impact on labour market outcomes not only in the European Union in general but also in some specific countries in particular. In this contribution, we shed light on the evolution of this labour market dimension of gender inequalities during the Great Recession, both in the EU in general and in a set of selected countries: France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.

Disability Pensions in Spain: A Factor to Compensate Lifetime Losses

Among the different instruments used by the welfare state to protect vulnerable population, there are the disability pensions. These pensions appear as key elements to protect disable people in the absence or breaks in their labour careers. The Spanish pay-as-you-go social security system is a good example of disability pension provision. In Spain, a safety-net combines means-tested and non-means-tested elements to guarantee a certain level of income to individuals with a given degree of disability. In this chapter attention is focused on the second type of component; that is to say, the pensions entitled to the people who having contributing for a certain period of time, have later in life, caused a disability pension. The pension entitled in this later case is computed according to the labour profile of the individual and, consequently, linked to her or his past contributions to the social security system. However, the method used to compute the main component of the pension leaves the beneficiaries of a disability pension in a disadvantageous situation compared to the beneficiaries of a regular pension. This paper discusses this loss and defines a factor to compensate that loss.

Unemployment, wages and pensions

Abstract Empirical evidence has shown the existence of a negative relationship between the rates of unemployment and real wages. If pensions are computed according to the wages that workers have contributed, then the unemployment rates during working life may also influence the pensions to which they are entitled. Using data from 2005 to 2012 for the Spanish social security system, we estimate that the unemployment elasticity of real pension is −0.135. A 1% increase in unemployment rate is associated with a reduction in pension equal to 0.135%. In ‘normal times’, this value could be considered modest, but the Great Recession has increased dramatically the rate of unemployment. In 2012, the rate of unemployment in Spain had increased to 25.7% and in 2015, it had diminished to 20.9%. It is estimated that unemployment rate will not be returned to figures existing before the crisis until middle of the next decade. Moreover, the current reforms in social security systems could interact with the future effects of the current rates of unemployment and cause future pensions to be significantly lower than those estimated by individuals. The economic welfare of the future cohorts of retirees would then be significantly worsened.

Global Imbalances as Constraints to the Economic Activity in the World Economy

Since the beginning of the 2000s, the phenomenon of the global imbalances has been the object of special attention by economists and the international institutions. As we will see later, before the crisis there was a clear division between those that interpreted these imbalances as a disequilibrium and those that argued that they were a new kind of world equilibrium (the so-called ‘Bretton Woods II’ hypothesis), where the countries with current account surpluses were financing the countries with current account deficits.