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Social Security and Retirement across the OECD

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  • Alonso Ortiz, Jorge

Abstract

Employment to population ratios differ markedly across Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, especially for people aged over 55 years. In addition, social security features differ markedly across the OECD, particularly with respect to features such as generosity, entitlement ages, and implicit taxes on social security benefits. This study postulates that differences in social security features explain many differences in employment to population ratios at older ages. This conjecture is assessed quantitatively with a life cycle general equilibrium model of retirement. At ages 60–64 years, the correlation between the simulations of this study׳s model and observed data is 0.67. Generosity and implicit taxes are key features to explain the cross-country variation, whereas entitlement age is not.

Suggested Citation

  • Alonso Ortiz, Jorge, 2014. "Social Security and Retirement across the OECD," MPRA Paper 59614, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:59614
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social security; Retirement; Idiosyncratic labor income risk;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • H53 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies

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