Social security in theory and practice (I): Facts and political theories

Casey Mulligan and Xavier Sala-i-Martin

Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Abstract: 166 countries have some kind of public old age pension. What economic forces create and sustain old age Social Security as a public program? We document some of the internationally and historically common features of Social Security programs including explicit and implicit taxes on labor supply, pay-as-you-go features, intergenerational redistribution, benefits which are increasing functions of lifetime earnings and not means-tested. We partition theories of Social Security into three groups: "political", "efficiency" and "narrative" theories. We explore three political theories in this paper: the majority rational voting model (with its two versions: "the elderly as the leaders of a winning coalition with the poor" and the "once and for all election" model), the "time-intensive model of political competition" and the "taxpayer protection model". Each of the explanations is compared with the international and historical facts. A companion paper explores the "efficiency" and "narrative" theories, and derives implications of all the theories for replacing the typical pay-as-you-go system with a forced savings plan.

Keywords: Social Security; retirement; gerontocracy; retirement incentives; political theories of Social Security (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-lab, nep-mic, nep-pol and nep-pub
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (46)

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Working Paper: Social Security in Theory and Practice (I): Facts and Political Theories (1999)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:upf:upfgen:384

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