When the State Mirrors the Family: The Design of Pension Systems

61 Pages Posted: 4 Aug 2010

See all articles by Vincenzo Galasso

Vincenzo Galasso

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); Bocconi University; University of Bocconi - Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research (IGIER); CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute); Bocconi University - Baffi Carefin Centre

Paola Profeta

Bocconi University

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: July 1, 2010

Abstract

Family is a primal institution. Family organization (e.g. inheritance rules) can be transmitted over time, or even embedded into newly born economic institutions. We argue that when the family is substituted in one of its economic role by another, perhaps new, institution, the economic organization that was prevailing within the family is likely to be adopted by the new-born institution. To study this transmission mechanism from family culture (or organization) to economic institutions, we concentrate on the impact of the family structure on the design of the most widely spread welfare state program in the world: the public pension system. We first build a simple OLG model which predicts that, when pensions systems are introduced, in society with weak family ties they act as a safety net, while in societies with strong ties pensions replicate the tight link between generations and tend to provide benefits related to earnings. We turn to a historical perspective and we find that medieval family structures (based on Emmanuel Todd’s classification) have influenced the design of pension systems since their introduction, shaping the fundamental characteristics that are still entailed in the current systems, and that differentiate them across countries. In particular, in societies dominated by absolute nuclear families, i.e. weak family ties (f.i. Anglo-Saxon countries), we observe the emergence of a pension system which acts as a flat safety net entailing the largest within-cohort redistribution than societies dominated by any other type of family. This link between the type of families and the design of pension systems is robust to including several other variables, which may constitute alternative explanations of the introduction of the pension systems, such as legal origin, religion, urbanization and democratization of the country at the time of the introduction, and the current GDP, share of elderly in the population, electoral rules and forms of government. Interestingly, historical family types matter for explaining the design of the pension systems, which represents a persistent feature, but not their size, which have largely changed over time.

Keywords: Culture, Institutions, Historical Evidence

JEL Classification: Z10, Z13, N30, H10, H55

Suggested Citation

Galasso, Vincenzo and Galasso, Vincenzo and Profeta, Paola, When the State Mirrors the Family: The Design of Pension Systems (July 1, 2010). Netspar Discussion Paper No. 07/2010-026, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1653338 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1653338

Vincenzo Galasso

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

Bocconi University ( email )

Via Roetgen 1
20136 Milan, MI 20136
Italy

University of Bocconi - Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research (IGIER)

Via Roentgen 1
Milan, 20136
Italy
+39 02 5836 5319 (Phone)
+39 02 5836 5318 (Fax)

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

Bocconi University - Baffi Carefin Centre ( email )

Via Roentgen 1
Milan
Italy

Paola Profeta (Contact Author)

Bocconi University ( email )

Milan, MI
Italy

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
95
Abstract Views
1,016
Rank
287,833
PlumX Metrics