 Public Pensions: A Social Response or a Misuse of Individual Saving?Louis Ascah and Athanasios Asimakopulos Chapter 12 in Economic Theory, Welfare and the State, 1990, pp 200-217 from Palgrave Macmillan Abstract: Abstract What are public pensions? Should they be viewed and analysed as schemes of forced individual saving that provide income when retired, or as tax and transfer arrangements that are used to produce incomes for the elderly that are consistent with social goals? If these pensions are viewed as the outcomes of ‘forced’ individual savings, then judgements about the scope and usefulness of these programmes would revolve around the rates of return that these ‘savings’ appear to earn in this form, as compared to what they would have earned if they had been invested in alternative forms. Different criteria would be appropriate if public pensions are considered to be tax-and-transfer arrangements. It is the social adequacy of the results of the programmes over time, rather than a calculation of individual rates of return, that becomes relevant. To pass muster, of course, these plans should treat equally individuals who are equal in relevant characteristics (e.g. age, earnings, marital status, etc.). Keywords: Social Security; Social Welfare Function; Social Security System; Pension Plan; Public Pension (search for similar items in EconPapers) There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-10911-1_12 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-10911-1_12 Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan |
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