1、附录一 原文 Reintroducing Intergenerational Equilibrium: Key Concepts behind the New Polish Pension System Abstract Poland adopted a new pension system in 1999. This new pension system allows Poland to reduce pension expenditure (as a percent of GDP), instead of increasing it as is projected for the majo
2、rity of other OECD countries. This paper presents the conceptual background of the new system design. The new systems long-term bjective is to ensure intergenerational equilibrium irrespective of the demographic situation. This requires stabilisation of the share of GDP allocated to the entire retir
3、ed generation. Traditional pension systems aim, instead, at stabilisation of the share of GDP per retiree. The change in demographic structure observed over the past for a couple of decades and this historic attempt to stabilise the share of GDP per retiree led to severe fiscal problems and negative
4、 externalities for growth, as observed in numerous countries. Many countries have tried to reform their pension systems in different ways to try to resolve the issue of these ever-increasing costs. Although the Polish reform uses a number of techniques applied elsewhere, its design differs from the
5、typical approaches and the lessons and results are promising for all OECD countries. This paper presents the theoretical and practical application of this alternative approach and as such, the key features of the new Polish pension system design. Introduction Demographic transition together with myo
6、pic policies has caused severe problems in the area of pensions in many countries around the world. Elements of traditional pension systems design include a weak link of benefits to contributions and the lack of control over costs of the system. Inclusion of these elements in the pension system desi
7、gn led to the explosion of costs, caused negative externalities for growth and contributed to persistently high unemployment. As such, the quest for pension reform is now on the top of policy agendas around the world, and especially 2 in Europe. However, very few countries have been able to introduc
8、e fundamental reforms in the area of pensions to this time. In this case, the definition of reform is crucial. For the purposes of this paper, “reform” means changing the system in order to remove tructural inefficiencies and not just playing at the margins with contribution rates and retirement age
9、s to adjust the systems parameters for short-term fiscal and political reasons.Traditional pension systems have proven to be inefficient in providing societies with social security. At the same time attempts to cure these systems are hampered by a lack of consensus on what could replace the traditio
10、nal system. Discussions on this issue involve confusion stemming from the ideological context of the discussion participants, as well as from overuse of such concepts as “pay-as-you-go” versus “funding”, or “public” versus “private”, while at the same time ignoring a number of important economic iss
11、ues. Furthermore, economists have traditionally ignored pensions. Designing and running pension systems was left to non-economists, who were not extensively concerned with how to finance pensions in the long-term or with how to counteract these pension systems negative externalities. The new Polish
12、pension system belongs to very small number of successful attempts to apply modern thinking in the area of pensions. This does not mean as some may assume giving up social security goals. Rather, the key idea was to give up the inefficient methods of delivering social security in order to save its g
13、oals and principles. This paper consists of two parts. The first focuses on a discussion of general issues that need to be addressed when designing a pension system. These issues are presented in a way that goes beyond the traditional way of thinking on pensions. In regards to this second part of th
14、e paper, it is important to point out that most countries in the current EU member states and candidate countries have pension systems that are essentially the same at the basic policy level. As such, the solutions in one member state or candidate country can be expected to be the same. Like Europea
15、n states such as France, Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, Hungary and other European states, Poland and Sweden over the past decades and until the late 1990s developed inefficient, costly pension systems. As such, in part two of the paper we shall examine how Poland has now successfully implement
16、ed the approach presented in the first part of the paper, and created a fundamentally strong and neutral pension system. Selected general issues 3 Pension system design has to take into account a number of issues. Their full presentation and discussion goes beyond the scope of this paper This paper
17、presents only a list of the issues for consideration and the most important observations. The pension system: externalities versus neutrality The description of a pension system depends strongly on both the aggregated and individual viewpoint. From the aggregated perspective, the pension system is a
18、 way of dividing current GDP between a part kept by the working generation and a part allocated to the retired generation. From the individual perspective, the pension system is a way of income allocation over a persons life cycle. The above holds irrespective to the technical method applied or the
19、ideological viewpoint. The pension system as defined above is not necessarily pay-as-you-go or funded. Such features stem from technical elements additionally applied on the top of the pension system, rather than from the system itself. If the pension system design assumes anonymous participation an
20、d a substantial scale of redistribution then we usually call this system pay-as-you-go. If the pension system design uses financial markets, then we usually call it funded. However, these two typically used concepts do not exhaust all possible combinations of anonymous versus individualised particip
21、ation and financial versus non-financial pension system design techniques used. The dualistic pay-as-you-go versus funded approach leaves aside the combination of individual participation in a system that does not use financial markets. This approach also neglects the fact that using financial marke
22、ts means investment (pension portfolio consists of private equities) or deferring taxes (pension portfolio consists of government bonds), which is obviously not the same. Adding redistribution or financial markets to the pension system generates externalities. These externalities can be positive and
23、 negative. Redistribution within the pension system can generate positive externalities if the system is inexpensive, namely the part of GDP allocated to the retired generation is not large. If the redistribution is large, then it generates negative externalities, such as contributing to persistentl
24、y high unemployment and weak growth. Using financial markets causes positive externalities for growth if the pension system spends contribution money on investment. If the contributions are spent on government debt they may lead to negative externalities similar to those of large redistributive system, namely more tax distortions. This can happen if the rate of return on government debt is persistently above the rate of GDP growth. There exists yet another option, namely to bring the pension system as close toeconomic neutrality as possible. This option requires,
