Would a Privatized Social Security System Really Pay a Higher Rate of Return?

Columbia Business School, PaineWebber Working Paper No. PW-98-03

35 Pages Posted: 16 Feb 1999

See all articles by John Geanakoplos

John Geanakoplos

Yale University; Santa Fe Institute

Olivia S. Mitchell

University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School; University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School, Pension Research Council; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Stephen P. Zeldes

Columbia University - Columbia Business School, Finance; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Date Written: August 1998

Abstract

Many advocates of social security privatization argue that rates of return under a defined contribution individual account system would be much higher for all than they are under the current social security system. This claim is false. The mistake comes from ignoring accrued benefits already promised based on past payroll taxes and from underestimating the riskiness of stock investments.

Confusion arises because three distinct reforms are muddled. By privatization we mean creating individual accounts (which could, for example, be invested exclusively in bonds). By diversification we mean investing in stocks, and perhaps other assets, as well as bonds; diversification might be undertaken either by individuals in their private social security accounts or by the social security trust fund. By prefunding we mean closing the gap between social security benefits promised to date and the assets on hand to pay for them. Any one of these reforms could be implemented without the other two.

If the system were completely privatized, with no prefunding or diversification, the social security system would need to raise taxes and/or issue new debt in order to pay benefits already accrued. If the burden were spread evenly across all future generations via a constant proportional tax, the added taxes would completely eliminate any rate of return advantage on the individual accounts. We estimate that the required new taxes would amount to about 3 percent of payroll, or about a quarter of all social security contributions, in perpetuity. Unlike privatization, prefunding would raise rates of return for later generations, but at the cost of lower returns for today's workers.

For households able to invest in the stock market on their own, diversification would not raise rates of return, correctly adjusted to recognize risk. Households that are constrained from holding stock, due to lack of wealth outside of social security or to fixed costs from holding stocks, would gain higher risk-adjusted returns and would benefit from diversification. If this group is large, diversification would raise stock values, thus helping current stockholders, but it would lower future stock returns, thus hurting young unconstrained households. Overall, since the number of truly constrained households is probably not that large, privatization and diversification would have a much smaller effect on returns than reformers typically claim.

JEL Classification: H0, E6, G1

Suggested Citation

Geanakoplos, John D and Mitchell, Olivia S. and Zeldes, Stephen P., Would a Privatized Social Security System Really Pay a Higher Rate of Return? (August 1998). Columbia Business School, PaineWebber Working Paper No. PW-98-03, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=145930 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.145930

John D Geanakoplos

Yale University ( email )

30 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, CT 06511
United States
203-432-3397 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://https://economics.yale.edu/people/faculty/john-geanakoplos

Santa Fe Institute ( email )

1399 Hyde Park Road
Santa Fe, NM 87501
United States

Olivia S. Mitchell

University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School ( email )

Philadelphia, PA 19104-6365
United States

University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School, Pension Research Council ( email )

3302 Steinberg Hall-Dietrich Hall
3620 Locust Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6302
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Stephen P. Zeldes (Contact Author)

Columbia University - Columbia Business School, Finance ( email )

3022 Broadway
Uris 825, Dept. of Finance & Economics
New York, NY 10027
United States
212-854-2492 (Phone)
212-208-4699 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.columbia.edu/~spz1

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

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