Why Are More Redistributive Social Security Systems Smaller? A Median Voter Approach

Marko Koethenbuerger, Panu Poutvaara and Paola Profeta

No 1831, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We suggest a political economy explanation for the stylized fact that intragenerationally more redistributive social security systems are smaller. We relate the stylized fact to an "efficiency-redistribution" trade-off to be resolved by political process. The inefficiency of social security financing is due to endogenous labor supply. Using data on eight European countries, we find that the stylized fact and a considerable degree of cross-country variation in contribution rates can be explained by the median voter model.

Keywords: public pensions; applied political economy; earnings-related and flat-rate benefits; labor supply (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2005-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge, nep-pbe, nep-pol and nep-pub
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Published - published in: Oxford Economic Papers, 2008, 60 (2), 275-292

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp1831.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Why are more redistributive social security systems smaller? A median voter approach (2008)
Working Paper: Why are more redistributive social security systems smaller? A median voter approach (2008)
Working Paper: Why are More Redistributive Social Security Systems Smaller? A Median Voter Approach (2005)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1831

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().