Why Funding is Not a Solution to the Social Security Crisis

Abstract

It is now a commonplace that the unfunded public pension systems of many OECD countries will run into severe financing problems in the coming decades due to a dramatically increasing pensioner/worker ratio. While this diagnosis is completely undisputed, there is still a vigorous debate on the appropriate therapy. In this debate, a number of proposals have been brought forward in particular in the last five years, which mainly consist in a (partial) transition to a funded pension system. Because such a transition is not a Pareto improvement, it is necessary to ask what can be the policy target that justifies such a redistributive move? The present paper tries to examine this question by identifying seven fallacies that are commonly made by advocates of such a transition.

Keywords: Social Security, Transition to Funding, Pareto Improvement, Policy Proposals

JEL Classification: H55