Assessing Welfare Accounts

Stefan Fölster (), Robert Gidehag (), Mike Orszag () and Dennis Snower
Additional contact information
Stefan Fölster: Confederation of Swedish Enterprise
Robert Gidehag: affiliation not available
Mike Orszag: Towers Watson

No 533, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The paper examines the possible effects of introducing a large-scale welfare reform in Sweden, namely, the introduction of comprehensive welfare accounts. Under this policy, individuals make mandatory contributions to accounts, which they can top up with voluntary contributions. In return, individuals’ welfare benefits are paid from their accounts. The paper uses a large panel of individual income data to examine how the adoption of universal welfare accounts may affect economic activity. We find that this policy could be designed so as to reduce social insurance expenditure considerably, improve the incentives to work and save, all with relatively small redistributive impact.

Keywords: welfare state benefits; welfare reform; welfare accounts; social insurance; taxes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H11 H21 H23 H51 H52 H53 H55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2002-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Published - published in: Torben Andersen and Per Molander (eds,): Alternatives for Welfare Policy: Coping with Internationalisation and Demographic Change, Cambridge, 2003, 255 - 275

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Related works:
Working Paper: Assessing Welfare Accounts (2002)
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