The Political Economy of Social Security and Entitlements

社会保障和权利的政治经济学

• 批准号: 9617396
• 负责人: Thomas Cooley
• 金额: $ 17.72万
• 依托单位: University of Rochester
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1997
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1997-05-01 至 2000-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9617396&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Political; Economy; Social; Security; Entitlements

In the United States, as in many other countries, the economic burden of public entitlement programs has become a serious fiscal issue. Most notable is the Social Security system which has been the focus of much recent attention because of the current demographic makeup of the population. The prospect of the retirement of the baby boom generation and the demands that will place on the next generation of workers has caused many to question the basic idea that the provision of retirement benefits should be based on a pay-as-you-go system and regarded as an `entitlement`. This project will study the system of transfers that are regarded as entitlements. It will treat these as problems in political economy. The approach taken is to ask how a social security system and a publicly funded education system can emerge as both a political and an economic equilibrium in a competitive economy. Very little research has been done that simultaneously analyses the general equilibrium economic consequences and the political economy of social security. Understanding the interaction between political economy of social choices and their general equilibrium effects is important for understanding their welfare implications, for evaluating proposals for transforming social security from a pay-as-you-go system to a fully-funded system, and for evaluating efforts to decrease the public funding of education. A dynamic general equilibrium model will be constructed with multiple generations of agents, that capture the essence of the intertemporal choice problem involved in saving for retirement.

在美国，与许多其他国家一样，公共福利计划的经济负担已成为一个严重的财政问题。 最值得注意的是社会保障制度，由于当前的人口构成，该制度成为最近关注的焦点。婴儿潮一代的退休前景以及对下一代工人的要求，使许多人对退休福利的提供应基于现收现付制度并被视为一种“权利”这一基本理念提出质疑。该项目将研究被视为权利的转移制度。 它将把这些视为政治经济学中的问题。 采取的方法是询问社会保障体系和公共资助的教育体系如何在竞争性经济中实现政治和经济平衡。 同时分析一般均衡经济后果和社会保障政治经济学的研究很少。 了解社会选择的政治经济学及其一般均衡效应之间的相互作用对于理解其福利影响、评估将社会保障从现收现付制度转变为全额资助制度的建议以及评估减少教育公共经费的努力非常重要。 将由多代代理人构建动态一般均衡模型，该模型抓住了退休储蓄所涉及的跨期选择问题的本质。