In the standard case in which the interest rate is assumed to be greater than the rate of population growth, implementation of a social security program leads to a reduction in capital formation and a loss of welfare of the representative individual. This dissertation asks whether the parameters of a stylized social security program can be manipulated to reduce this welfare loss. By attaching weights to the earnings used in computing the average monthly earnings, an instrument is created which the social security administrator can use to manipulate the net marginal tax rates and the relative cost of leisure between years. If, as a result, aggregate savings increase, then steady-state welfare may also increase. The effect of changing the weights in the benefit formula is considered first in a simple three-period partial equilibrium model. Individuals work for two periods and are retired in the third. It is shown, under assumptions of separability, that first-period labor supply must go up and second-period labor supply must go down in response to an increase in the earnings weight attached to the first period. Furthermore, although there is an element of ambiguity, a strong case can be made that aggregate savings must increase. It is also shown that, contrary to intuition, a zero net tax is not neutral and in fact must lead to a reduction in capital formation and welfare. These same issues are then considered in a many-period model in which interest rates and wage rates are allowed to respond to changes in aggregate savings. It is found that alternatives to the current program that provide more weight to earnings of younger workers can reduce the welfare loss by a small amount. Because of the intractability of the many-periods case a computer simulation is used to perform the analysis. In addition, the adjustment costs of a public savings program are considered. (Feldstein, among others, has suggested that social security be used as a vehicle for a public savings program to increase private investment in the economy.) It is shown that while such a program would adversely affect that welfare of a number of generations, these welfare losses are quite small: less than 0.05% for all the cases considered. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the social protection of handicapped persons and its legal regulations in the social law of Czech Republic, the evaluation of the actuality and quality of the current settings of the social benefits and their valuation, with the focus on the benefit for care. This thesis is divided to three chapters. First chapter is introductory and defines the social security system itself. Furthermore, the first chapter introduces the history of the social security law in Europe and Czech Republic as well. The second chapter is focused on the specific benefits for physically and mentally disabled persons in accordance with the law 329/2011 Sb., of administration of the social security benefits for handicapped persons, which modulates the benefits to two parts; mobility benefit and benefit for the medical instruments. This law also includes the specification of the different levels of the identification cards for the handicapped persons. This part also concludes the current legal regulations, entitlement for benefits, the hearings and height of the allotted benefits. Along is in this chapter described the division and specification of the different levels of the special identification cards for handicapped, as described above, however with detailed benefits connected with...

ABSTRACT South Africa has a sophisticated and developed retirement fund industry and an extensive social security system. While the objective of the latter is wider, both are concerned with financial security: particularly in the face of risks of death, disability and old age. It is widely recognised that there are many gaps in coverage. The chapters in this thesis address these gaps and administrative and benefit structures that could be developed to provide a truly comprehensive social security system. In particular, the thesis discusses the retirement and old age recommendations of the Taylor Committee, on which the author served. The vision is of universal coverage for the current state benefits augmented by mandatory employer based group schemes that offer disability, retirement and orphans' pensions. Means tests, the Road Accident Fund and workers' compensation arrangements would be abolished. The chapters of the thesis are each self-contained, having all been published in – or submitted to – journals, books or conferences. In each, an attempt has been made to review a broader literature than is normally used to discover the impact of some element of the benefit structure, governance or investment policies of retirement schemes on their members. In this context, it is considered to be particularly appropriate to test policies and governance against the standard of justice

Thesis advisor: Alicia Munnell / Since 1975, Social Security retirement benefits have been tied to the Consumer Price Index to adjust for inflation. The CPI measures price changes for a market basket of goods and services designed to replicate the average consumer's expenditures. The elderly, however, consume a market basket different from that of the typical person. In particular, the elderly tend to purchase more medical services than other consumers. Because the price of medical care increases more rapidly than other prices, the inflation rate experienced by the elderly is greater than the inflation rate for the general population, even when controlling for the upward quality bias in the medical care component of pricing data. However, given that this difference in inflation rates is less than the size of the total measurement error in the CPI, recipients of Social Security retirement benefits are actually overcompensated for increases in inflation. Over the course of a beneficiary's retirement, this overcompensation results in a total benefit that is 5.4 – 6.6% greater than what the total benefit would have been under an ideal inflation indexing scheme. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2005. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics Honors Program.

Thesis advisor: Matthew Rutledge / This paper explores the relationship between social security wealth (SSW) and the decision to retire early in five countries: the United States, Germany, Denmark, Poland, and Australia. Individual probit regressions are used to analyze the impact of SSW on early retirement in each specific country. Next, a cross-country probit model including the United States, Germany, and Denmark is estimated to highlight the same relationship in three very different social insurance schemes. Finally, a counterfactual experiment is run in order to examine the impact of a 6.67 percent benefit cut on the likelihood of early retirement. This paper finds that SSW is associated with a greater likelihood of early retirement in the United States, Poland, and Denmark. However, these results are only statistically significant in the United States and Poland. Conversely, the relationship is statistically significant and negative in Australia, and statistically insignificant and negative in Germany. The counterfactual experiment reinforces these findings, demonstrating a particularly high responsiveness of a benefit cut in Denmark and Poland relative to the other countries. The results of the cross-country model finds that SSW has the largest positive effect on early retirement in the United States, followed by Germany, and finally Denmark. However, these contradictory results are not statistically significant. This paper presents interesting policy implications to consider in the United States. The statistically significant but small effect of SSW on early retirement in the United States indicates that policies aimed at reducing benefits as a means of decreasing the likelihood of early retirement may not be the most effective. Additionally, the creation of a system similar to Australia’s low-cost superannuation may be worth investigating, as superannuation benefits appear to have a similar negative impact on early retirement as pension benefits in the United States. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Economics.

Children are part of the vulnerable population and mostly affected by poverty. The main policy response to children living in poverty in South Africa is the Child Support Grant (CSG). It is payable to a needy primary caregiver of a child for the benefit of that child. The aim of the CSG is to alleviate poverty among children. Although the grant is meant to benefit children, some of the caregivers misuse the grant resulting in children living in poverty. The study explored how caregivers in Ba-Phalaborwa sub-district in Limpopo Province utilise the CSG in the best interest of children. The researcher was motivated to conduct the study due to the reported cases of misuse of the CSG. It came to the researcher s attention that many caregivers do not utilise CSG in the best interest of children. Instead, caregivers use the grant for their own needs, leaving children s needs unmet. The study adopted a qualitative approach and it was exploratory in nature. The sample of the study was drawn from a population of 27 945 recipients of the CSG in the sub-district. A non-purposive sampling technique was used to select a sample of 20 caregivers aged between 21 and 50 who were also the beneficiaries of poor relief. A semi-structured interview schedule was used to collect data. The researcher conducted face-to-face individual interviews with 20 CSG recipients in Ba-Phalaborwa. The researcher also observed the participants home circumstances which further assisted her in data analysis. Thematic content analysis was used in analysing the data. The findings revealed that the CSG is mostly utilised to buy food, clothes and school necessities for children. This is a reflection that the grant does benefit children directly. Indirectly, the children benefit through contribution to burial societies with the grant. However, the findings further revealed that, there were perceptions that some recipients did not utilise the grant in the best interest of children. The misuse was through gambling and purchasing alcohol with grant. This disadvantages children. Suggestions were proposed on how those who misuse the grant can be dealt with. The suggestions included; initiating food vouchers, changing the recipient, monitoring, and punishing those who misuse the grant. In addition to the money being utilised to purchase food, clothes and school necessities for children, the findings also revealed that the participants were of the view that a slight amount of the grant need to be saved on a monthly basis so that it will help the children in future, especially when they go to tertiary institutions. However, participants complained about the inadequacy of the grant. VI Based on the research findings, it was recommended that if it is found that the recipients misuse the grant, someone should be appointed to receive the grant on behalf of the child and to use it for the benefit of that child. This should be done in collaboration with social workers and SASSA officials. Social workers should monitor the utilisation of CSG in order to ensure that the grant benefits children. Given the fact that the caseload for social workers is high, hiring other personnel (e.g. Auxiliary Social Workers) to deal specifically with the monitoring of the grant was recommended. The Auxiliary Social Workers can also assist families who are unable to manage their finances in drawing budgets with the CSG. It was further recommended that there is a need for South Africa to develop a comprehensive system of social protection which will enable caregivers to receive support in their own right. This would serve to ensure that the CSG is used specifically to meet the needs of children.

Thesis advisor: Mathis Wagner / The essays that comprise my dissertation analyze the interactions among old age labor supply, health, and Social Security system in the United States. In the first chapter of my dissertation, I provide estimate of the causal effect of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) application on employment of denied applicants. Using exogenous variations of SSDI application decision, I find that the employment rate is 36 percentage points lower for the denied applicants than that of comparable non-applicants in the short-run. In the second chapter (with Matthew Rutledge and April Wu) we explore the relationship between individuals’ expectation on longevity and their plans for retirement in a quasi-experimental setting. The estimates in this paper suggest a large and statistically significant relationship between subjective life expectancy and retirement expectations: an individual who is one standard deviation more optimistic about living to age 75 has a greater probability of planning to work fulltime at 62 and 65 by 10 percent and 21 percent, respectively. In the third chapter of my dissertation (with Norma Coe and Matthew Rutledge) we identify the contribution of Medicare in explaining the retirement behavior of workers. We find individuals without access to retiree health insurance from work are 7.5 percentage points more likely to retire soon after their 65th birthdays and are 5.8 percentage points less likely to delay retirement until the Full Retirement Age (FRA) than those with that insurance. We interpret this finding as evidence that Medicare eligibility persuades more people to retire, because they can begin receiving federal health coverage. The findings of the research in my dissertation provide important insights in making the Social Security system more welfare enhancing for the older workers and the disabled as well as keeping it sustainable in the long-run. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Thesis advisor: Alicia H. Munnell / This dissertation contains three essays. Each considers an economic decision faced by elderly households. The cost of nursing home care represents a substantial financial risk for older households. Yet, only 10 percent purchase long-term care insurance (LTCI), with many relying on Medicaid. The first essay estimates a structural model of the LTCI purchase decision using Health and Retirement Study data. Estimates indicate that this population has a modest preference for higher quality care and thus Medicaid crowds out LTCI. In addition, housing wealth provides self-insurance against the cost of nursing home care, so that individuals who are "house-rich cash-poor" are less likely to purchase LTCI. I also evaluate public policies designed to stimulate the take-up of LTCI and reduce Medicaid spending. I find that a comprehensive 20 percent subsidy would increase take-up by 160 percent, but the resulting Medicaid savings would amount to only 22 percent of the subsidy cost. A targeted subsidy would be more likely to break even, but would have only a small effect on coverage. Full enforcement of Medicaid estate recovery programs would reduce Medicaid expenditure by 31 percent, but would have insignificant effect on LTCI coverage. The second essay investigates the impact of house prices fluctuations on the non-durable goods consumption decision of older households. House prices in the United States fluctuate over time with significant regional variation. Thus, understanding how these price movements affect households' consumption has important policy implications. Existing studies focus mostly on the working population, leaving the effect of older households, who could be either the largest beneficiaries or victims of house price fluctuations, unexamined. Using Health and Retirement Study data, I show that house price fluctuations significantly affect non-durable goods consumption of older households. Estimates indicate that both the wealth effect and a relaxed borrowing constraint increase consumption when house prices appreciate. In addition, I find that only unexpected changes in house prices lead to changes in consumption of non-credit constrained households, which is consistent with economic theory predictions. Finally, I provide evidence that older households usually fund the additional consumption by increasing mortgage debt, rather than by drawing down financial assets. The third essay evaluates the value of the additional longevity insurance acquired by delaying claiming social security benefit. Individuals can claim Social Security at any age from 62 to 70, although most claim at 62 or soon thereafter. Those who delay claiming receive increases that are approximately actuarially fair. I show that expected present value calculations substantially understate both the optimal claim age and the losses resulting from early claiming because they ignore the value of the additional longevity insurance acquired as a result of delay. Using numerical optimization techniques, I illustrate that for plausible preference parameters, the optimal age for non-liquidity constrained single individuals and married men to claim benefit is between 67 and 70. I calculate that Social Security Equivalent Income, the amount by which benefits payable at suboptimal ages must be increased so that a household is indifferent between claiming at those ages and the optimal combination of ages, can be as high as 19 percent. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of fiscal decentralization on the efficiency of social security in China since the realization of social security was promoted and some relevant policies were implemented in 21 century. This study uses China’s provincial-level data of 31 regions from 2000 to 2009 and uses two inputs and three outputs to calculate the efficiency scores as the dependent variables. The inputs are the proportions of expenditures for social security and employment effort to total public expenditures and the proportions of hygiene, social security, and social welfare employed people to total employed people. The outputs are the coverage rate of urban basic pension insurance, the coverage rate of unemployment insurance, and the coverage rate of urban basic medical care insurance. Then, this study establishes four specifications of the Tobit model. Other factors, gross regional product per capita (PGRP), the degree of openness (OPEN), the scale of provincial government (SOG), the quadratic term of the former (SOGSQ), area dummy variables, and time dummy variables, are added into the Tobit model. The primary finding of this study is that fiscal decentralization has a positively non-monotonic influence on the efficiency of social security. This contributes positively to the efficiency of provincial government’s social security, but this positive influence does not always exist.

<p>This paper addresses the question if income security can enhance economic growth in developing countries? It takes its starting point in the income security problems of a developing country and summarizes evidence from published empirical research on formal income security mechanisms. We conclude that the findings on incomes security efficiency effects are ambiguous. A limited econometric study based on data from Chile is carried out with a regression showing that social securities total effect on economic growth is negative but more econometric research on total effect on growth are needed to give a definite answer.</p>