Are Aging OECD Welfare States on the Path to Gerontocracy?

2009 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARKUS TEPE ◽  
PIETER VANHUYSSE

ABSTRACTSince 1990 the age of the average OECD median voter has increased three times faster than in the preceding 30 years. We use panel data from 1980–2002 to investigate the effects of population aging on both the program size and the benefit generosity of public pensions in 18 OECD countries. Population aging is accompanied by cutting smaller slices out of larger cakes: it increases aggregate spending on pensions but freezes or decreases the generosity of individual benefits. Controlling for political, institutional and time-period effects, we find that public pension efforts are significantly mediated by welfare regime type. Moreover, since the late 1980s pension effort has more fully adopted a retrenchment logic. It is the politics of fiscal and electoral straitjackets, not gerontocracy, which shape public pension spending today. While population aging is accelerating, contrary to alarmist political economy predictions democracies are not yet dominated by a new distributive politics of elderly power.

2014 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Steffen Bollacke

AbstractPopulation aging challenges pay-as-you-go pension systems. Solving the associated funding problem constantly motivates reform processes. In addition to an aging population, specific regulations of the German public pension system lead to an increasing financial burden of national finances. To ensure sustainable funding of pensions, the calculation formula of the German public pension system will be investigated in this paper. It will be shown, that there are two alterable parameters, which are not optimally used regarding the funding of public pensions. Simulations show that a variable demographic factor to calculate public pensions can reduce the financial burden of national finances.


2020 ◽  
pp. 147892991988786
Author(s):  
Vincenzo Alfano ◽  
Pietro Maffettone

Public pensions are a ‘social technology’ at the heart of most welfare states. The basic goal pursued by a public pension system is to make sure that individuals do not outlive their savings. An increasing number of states have recently moved to a system that matches individuals’ contributions over their working lives to a specific stream of revenue during their retirement years (i.e. defining contributions rather than benefits). As a result, intragenerational fairness concerns have started to become more relevant. In this article, we shall claim that, irrespective of how one conceptualises the welfare state, most public pension systems violate actuarial fairness and any plausible account of distributive justice, and that they do so for structural reasons. Studying the Italian case, we offer insights on this regressive redistributive effect, based on regional data, and offer an implicit policy solution to obviate this problem.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 806-807
Author(s):  
Philip Buck

Abstract The incidence of vaccine-preventable diseases remains high among older adults in the US, despite longstanding immunization recommendations, and is projected to increase as the population ages. The impact of US population aging on the burden of four vaccine-preventable diseases (influenza, pneumococcal disease, shingles, and pertussis) was modeled over a 30-year time horizon, with cumulative direct and indirect costs increasing from $378 billion over 10 years to $1.28 trillion over 30 years. Compared to current levels of vaccination coverage, increasing coverage was predicted to avert over 33 million cases of disease and greater than $96 billion in disease-associated costs, with a corresponding increase in vaccination costs of approximately $83 billion over the entire 30-year time period. Specific examples of cost-effectiveness analyses that assess the epidemiologic and economic impact of vaccination against shingles and pertussis in older adults will be discussed. Part of a symposium sponsored by the Health Behavior Change Interest Group.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Suyoung Kim

AbstractAlthough the voluntary sector is internationally valued as an integral component of the welfare mix, studies on East Asian welfare regimes have primarily focused on state-market-family interactions, paying scant attention to the long-standing and pivotal role of voluntary agencies in their construction. This case study illuminates this less-known aspect of modern welfare history in the context of South Korea, with a particular focus on the activities of voluntary organizations. The study categorizes South Korean voluntary associations into four types and examines their different contributions in shaping South Korea’s welfare regime, by applying Young’s framework on government–voluntary organizations relations. This historical exploration on the South Korean voluntary sector aims to deepen understanding of an East Asian welfare state regime. It further suggests that current welfare mix debates, focusing on the service delivery role of voluntary organizations within Western European welfare states, should be broadened.


2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Dewilde

In this paper, we model the impact on the entry into poverty of a range of demographic and labour market events. Our analyses are based on longitudinal panel data from two countries belonging to a different regime type – Belgium and Britain. The results show that while in Belgium the impact of most life events is relatively small, in Britain most demographic and labour market events significantly raise the chances of becoming poor. We link the observed poverty entry patterns to the ways in which economic welfare in Belgium and Britain is distributed between the three main systems of resources distribution: the welfare state, the labour market and the family. We furthermore find that the combined influence of the interrelated parts of the welfare regime on the role of women in the household economy is a potentially important explanatory factor.


1999 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael B. Mikhail ◽  
Beverly R. Walther ◽  
Richard H. Willis

We investigate if earnings forecast accuracy matters to security analysts by examining its association with analyst turnover. Controlling for firm- and time-period effects, forecast horizon and industry forecasting experience, we find that an analyst is more likely to turn over if his forecast accuracy is lower than his peers. We find no association between an analyst's probability of turnover and his absolute forecast accuracy. We also investigate another observable measure of the analyst's performance, the profitability of his stock recommendations. There is no statistical relation between the absolute or relative profitability of an analyst's stock recommendations and his probability of turnover. We interpret our findings as indicating that forecast accuracy is important to analysts.


Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Halim Rane

Over the past 15 years, 47 Muslim Australians have been convicted for terrorism offences. Australian courts have determined that these acts were motivated by the offenders’ “Islamic” religious beliefs and that interpretations of Quranic verses concerning jihad, in relation to shariah, caliphate, will of God and religious duty contributed to the commission of these crimes. This paper argues that these ideas, derived from certain classical-era Islamic jurisprudence and modern Islamist thought, contradict other classical-era interpretations and, arguably, the original teachings of Islam in the time of the Prophet Muhammad. In response to the call for “cogent religious instruction” to combat the phenomenon of radical Islamist terrorism, this paper outlines a deradicalization program that addresses late 20th- and early 21st-century time-period effects: (1) ideological politicization associated with Islamist jihadism; (2) religious extremism associated with Salafism; and (3) radicalization associated with grievances arising from Western military interventions in Muslim-majority countries. The paper offers a counter narrative, based on a contextualized reading of the Quran and recent research on the authentication of the Covenants of the Prophet Muhammad. It further contends that cogent religious instruction must enhance critical-thinking skills and provide evidence-based knowledge in order to undermine radical Islamist extremism and promote peaceful coexistence.


Author(s):  
DANIEL E. IMPOINVIL ◽  
GABRIEL A. CARDENAS ◽  
JOHN I. GIHTURE ◽  
CHARLES M. MBOGO ◽  
JOHN C. BEIER

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