Search Results
Working Paper
The effects of social security privatization on household saving: evidence from the Chilean experience
In recent years, a handful of countries have converted the financing of their social security systems from pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) to partial or full funding. Privatization is viewed as one way to insulate social security from the political and demographic pressures that currently threaten the financial stability of PAYGO systems. However, privatization would improve a nation's situation only if such a reform increases domestic saving. In this paper I use evidence from Chile, where social security was privatized in 1981, to assess the impact of such a reform on household saving rates. I find ...
Journal Article
Sidebar : the privatization wave
Report
The literature on privatization
The privatization literature focuses on three related areas: productive efficiency, the government budget, and privatization techniques. Where competitive product and capital markets exist, privatization is likely to improve productive efficiency. Such improvement makes possible fiscal gains, which may also be derived from reductions in government largess. These conclusions are weakly supported by an empirical literature that is often plagued by ambiguous results. The techniques literature provides policy guidelines for achieving the maximum benefits from privatization under a variety of ...
Working Paper
Social security privatization: what it can and cannot accomplish
This paper assesses the effect of social security privatization on the government budget, economic efficiency, national savings, and the distribution of resources across generations. It is shown that the benefits of privatization most often touted by privatization advocates can be achieved by simply altering taxes and social security pensions and leaving the basic structure of social security unchanged. In the conclusion, two simple arguments are given for why privatization might be a good idea nonetheless.
Conference Paper
It's High Time to Privatize: Panel Discussion
Journal Article
Examining social security privatization in Latin America
Journal Article
Privatization of local public services: lessons for New England
As governments consider ways to provide public services more efficiently, privatization can seem like an attractive option. Yet the subject engenders sharp controversies. In New England, local governments generally have not engaged in as much privatization as those in other parts of the country. ; This article examines the evidence on the relative merits of privatizing public services and attempts to determine whether these costs and benefits actually appear to explain local government behavior throughout the United States. The limited scope of privatization by New England local governments ...
Journal Article
Social Security and Medicare: no free lunch
Journal Article
Postal savings in Japan and mortgage markets in the U.S.
Financial system redesign has become high political drama in Japan. In August, 2005, Prime Minister Koizumi's plan to privatize Japan's huge postal savings and life insurance system (PSS) was defeated in the Lower House of the Diet. Koizumi then retaliated by dissolving the Lower House and calling a "snap" election for September 11, 2005 in hopes of getting members of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) more supportive of his program into the legislature. This was essentially a showdown?an open confrontation between the "new" and the "old" LDP in an effort by Koizumi to reduce the ...