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on Economics of Ageing |
| By: | Bruno Amable (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne, CEPREMAP - Centre pour la recherche économique et ses applications - Centre pour la recherche économique et ses applications, IUF - Institut Universitaire de France - Ministère de l'Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche Scientifique); Baptiste Françon (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we investigate the microeconomic effects of one major feature of the German Hartz Reforms (2003-2005), namely the reduction in compensation duration for older unemployed above 45 years of age. We look at two potential effects of this measure: on job take-up rates, but also on post-unemployment outcomes, through various indicators of matching quality (job stability, skill adequacy) and job quality (type of job contract). Applying difference-in-differences estimators, we show that the effects of this specific feature were rather scant. Regarding unemployment duration, only unemployed within a specific age group (55 to 59 years old) were affected by the reform. Evidence suggests that this is because they previously used unemployment schemes as a bridge to early retirement. In addition, there is some evidence of detrimental effects on job or matching quality. |
| Keywords: | Unemployment benefits; unemployment duration; job matching; job quality; early retirement; difference-in-differences |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00973884&r=age |
| By: | Hanming Fang |
| Abstract: | We describe the risks faced by the ageing population and survey the corresponding insurance markets for these risks. We focus on income risk, health expenditure risk, long-term care expenditure risk and mortality risk. We also discuss the interactions between social insurance and private insurance markets. |
| JEL: | D14 G22 H51 H55 I13 |
| Date: | 2014–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20549&r=age |
| By: | Inagaki, Seiichi |
| Abstract: | All people in Japan are covered by a basic pension. Currently, homemakers (Category 3 subscribers) make no contributions to the basic pension yet always receive full basic pensions. On the other hand, self-employed, non-regular employees, and unemployed people (Category 1) currently make contributions but receive pensions based on their payment periods. From the standpoint of fairness, whether Category 3 subscribers should contribute to the basic pension has been a controversial issue in Japan. This study assesses both the sustainability and the adequacy of the public pension system if the contribution of Category 3 subscribers were to be made mandatory. In particular, we modify official actuarial valuation results and examine the adequacy of pension benefits using a dynamic microsimulation model, the Integrated Analytical Model for Household Simulation. Mandatory contributions by Category 3 subscribers have a positive effect on the sustainability of the public pension system and a negative effect on its adequacy. However, their overall impact is not that large., 日本の公的年金制度では、すべての居住者が基礎年金の対象者となっているが、就業状態などによって加入区分（保険料・給付の仕組み）が異なっている。現行制度では、第2号被保険者（主に正規雇用者）の被扶養配偶者たる専業主婦は、第3号被保険者として区分され、保険料の納付を必要としないが、満額の基礎年金を受けることができる。これに対し、非正規雇用者や非就業者などの第1号被保険者は、保険料を納付する必要があり、保険料の未納期間などがある場合にはその期間に応じて基礎年金が減額される。公平性の観点などから、第3号被保険者も第1号被保険者と同様に保険料を納付する仕組みに改めるべきではないかという議論が提起されているが、そうした改革を行った場合における、年金財政の持続可能性や給付の十分性に関する定量的な推計結果（エビデンス）が示されておらず、抽象的な議論にとどまっている。そこで、本研究では、第3号被保険者の保険料納付を義務化したときにおける、これらの定量的な評価を行うことを目的とした。具体的には、第3号被保険者を廃止し、専業主婦もその他の非就業者等と同様に第1号被保険者とした場合を想定し、財政の持続可能性については2009年財政検証結果に基づき、給付の十分性についてはマイクロシミュレーションモデルを用いて推計を行った。財政の持続可能性については、基礎年金について加入区分の変更による財政影響がないよう、厚生年金から国民年金に積立金を11.7兆円移管することとしたことから、厚生年金（報酬比例年金）のみに財政影響があり、最終的な給付水準（40年加入の平均的な男性）を月額82,200 円から87,400円に6.3％押し上げる効果があることが明らかとなった。一方、給 付の十分性については、専業主婦について現在の第1号被保険者と同様に保険料の未納が 起こりうることから、将来の高齢者の貧困率（世帯構成を考慮した生活扶助基準未満）が 上昇し、2060年における高齢女性の貧困率は26.2％から27.5％と1.3ポイ ント、高齢男性の貧困率は13.5％から14.2％と0.7ポイント高まる効果がある ことが明らかとなった。 |
| Date: | 2014–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hit:cisdps:636&r=age |
| By: | Louise Grogan (African School of Economics (Bénin) and Dept. of Economics and Finance, University of Guelph (Canada)); Fraser Summerfield (Department of Economics and CELMR, University of Aberdeen (UK); The Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis (RCEA), Italy) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how the receipt of the age-determined Russian state pension impacts the incomes, working hours, self-reported wellbeing, self-employed home production, and health behaviors of individuals. Household panel data spanning 2006-2011 is employed. Regression discontinuity estimators with individual fixed effects identify the causal impact of attaining state pension age on these outcomes. Attaining pension age has large negative causal impacts on market work hours, but also important positive effects on the self-employment output of women, and negative effects on the non-monetized home production activities of men. No positive impacts are found on any subjective measures of wellbeing or economic security. The results are reconciled by augmenting the standard labor supply theory of Gronau (1977) with new ideas about occupational identities first outlined in Akerlof and Kranton (2000). |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rim:rimwps:22_14&r=age |
| By: | Leora Friedberg; Wenliang Hao; Wei Sun; Anthony Webb; Zhenyu Li |
| Abstract: | Long-term care is one of the major expenses faced by many older Americans. Yet, we have only limited information about the risk of needing long-term care and the expected duration of care. The expectations of needing to receive home health care, live in an assisted living facility or live in a nursing home are essential inputs into models of optimal post-retirement saving and long-term care insurance purchase. Previous research has used the Robinson (1996) transition matrix, based on National Long Term Care Survey (NLTCS) data for 1982-89. The Robinson model predicts that men and women aged 65 have a 27 and 44 percent chance, respectively, of ever needing nursing home care. Recent evidence suggests that those earlier estimates may be extremely misleading in important dimensions. Using Health and Retirement Study (HRS) data from 1992-2010, Hurd, Michaud, and Rohwedder (2013) estimate that men and women aged 50 have a 50 and 65 percent chance, respectively, of ever needing care. But, they also estimate shorter average durations of care, resulting, as we show, from a greater chance of returning to the community, conditional on admission. If nursing home care is a high-probability but relatively low-cost occurrence, models that treat it as a lower-probability, high-cost occurrence may overstate the value of insurance. We update and modify the Robinson model using more recent data from both the NLTCS and the HRS. We show that the low lifetime utilization rates and high conditional mean durations of stay in the Robinson model are artifacts of specific features of the statistical model that was fitted to the data. We also show that impairment and most use of care by age has declined and that the 2004 NLTCS and the 1996-2010 HRS yield similar cross-sectional patterns of care use. We revise and update the care transition model, and we show that use of the new transition matrix substantially reduces simulated values of willingness-to-pay in an optimal long-term care insurance model. |
| Date: | 2014–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crr:crrwps:wp2014-12&r=age |
| By: | Stelter, Robert |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the problem of an \optimum population" concerning age structures in a 3-period OLG-model with endogenous fertility and longevity. The first-best solution for a number-dampened total social welfare function, including Millian and Benthamite utilitarianism as two extreme cases, identifies the optimal age structure, generally failed in the laissez-faire economy. Individuals over-invest in health expenditures and choose a non-optimal number of offspring. A calibration exercise for 80 countries emphasizes that mean ages in the optimal solution with the highest feasible individual utility exceed the observed in all countries, especially due to a very low first-best number of children. Introducing a preference for the population stock in the social welfare function increases fertility, but reduces individual utility, in the first-best solution. Optimal mean age shrinks and an over-aging of the laissez-faire economy becomes more likely. To decentralize first-best solutions health expenditures are taxed, whereas children are either taxed or subsided. |
| Keywords: | endogenous fertility,adult mortality,optimal age structure,over-aging,optimal taxation |
| JEL: | H20 I10 J18 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:roswps:137&r=age |
| By: | Nikolaos Antonakakis (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business); Nikolaos Antonakakis (Economics and Finance Subject Group, Portsmouth Business School, University of Portsmouth); Alan Collins (Economics and Finance Subject Group, Portsmouth Business School, University of Portsmouth) |
| Abstract: | While linkages between some macroeconomic phenomena (e.g. unemployment, GDP growth) and suicide rates in some countries have been explored, only one study, hitherto, has established a causal relationship between fiscal consolidation and suicide, albeit in a single country. This study examines the impact of budget consolidation on suicide mortality across all Eurozone peripheral economies, while controlling for various economic and sociodemographic differences. The impact of fiscal adjustments is found to be gender, age and time specific. In particular, fiscal consolidation has short-, medium- and long-run suicide increasing effects on the male population between 65 and 89 years of age. A one percentage point reduction in government spending is associated with an 1.39%, 2.35% and 2.64% increase in the short-, medium- and long-run, respectively, of male suicides rates between 65 and 89 years of age in the Eurozone periphery. These results are highly robust to alternative measures of fiscal consolidation. Unemployment benefits and substantial employment protection legislation seem to mitigate some of the negative effects of fiscal consolidation on suicide mortality. Plausible explanations for these impacts are provided and policy implications drawn. |
| Keywords: | Fiscal consolidation, Suicide, Eurozone periphery, Government policy, Labour market institutions |
| JEL: | H30 H51 H55 H62 I18 I31 J18 C33 |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwwuw:wuwp182&r=age |
| By: | Jiro Nakamura (Faculty of Economics, The University of Tokyo); Shinya Sugawara (Advanced Research Institute for the Sciences and Humanities, Nihon University) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes household structure of elders in Japan. Traditionally, this topic has been discussed from a perspective of coresidence of parents and children. However, we show that the number of childless elders, who do not have an option to coreside with their children, has rapid been increasing. We also show that the increase of childless elders may provide a problem in sustainability of the Japanese Long-term Care Insurance program. Our empirical analysis is based on microdata of the Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions an d finds the following re sults: The ratio of childless elder households over all elder households increased from 7.9% in 2001 to 15.7% in 2010. The number of childless elde r households are estimated as 3 million in 2010, among which the number of single elder households is estimated as 1.45 million. Besides, the rate of parents-children coresi dence for elders who have own children was not much changed. Furthermore, it is also shown that childless elder are more likely to enter long-term care institutions even with low requirement for care. Also, demographic statistics suggest that the number of childless elders will increase for the time being. Thus, it is required to reconsider a balance between home-based and institutional care services and improve efficiency of the institutional care sector. |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:jseres:2014cj265&r=age |
| By: | Gehringer, Agnieszka; Prettner, Klaus |
| Abstract: | We analyze the impact of increasing longevity on technological progress within an R&D-based endogenous growth framework and test the model´s implications on OECD data from 1960 to 2011. The central hypothesis derived in the theoretical part is that - by raising the incentives of households to invest in physical capital and in R&D - decreasing mortality positively impacts upon technological progress and thereby also on productivity growth. The empirical results clearly confirm the theoretical prediction which implies that the ongoing demographic changes in industrialized economies are not necessarily detrimental to economic prosperity, at least as far as technological progress and productivity growth are concerned. |
| Keywords: | demographic change,longevity,productivity,technological progress,economic prosperity |
| JEL: | J11 O11 O40 O41 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cegedp:213&r=age |