Distributive concerns when replacing a pay-as-you-go system with a fully funded system

The author uses a simulation model to quantify the impact on income distribution of having a neutral social security program that is fully funded replace a progressive social security program that redistributes income toward the poor but is financed by a pay-as-you-go method. He finds that if the original pay-as-you-go system is large enough to yield an income replacement rate of at least 40 percent for the middle class and 200 percent for the poor, then the proposed change helps the poor in the long run, so long as public debt does not increase by more than 40 percent of GDP during the transition. Such a reform allows an increase in the capital stock per worker, so in the long run the poor benefit more through higher real wages than they lose because progressive redistribution has ended. In the short run, however, a compensatory program is needed because the poor lose their subsidy before receiving the long-term benefit. In most cases, the 40 percent of GDP available from the increase in public debt is enough to finance a transfer program that compensates the poor in the"short"run (the first 50 years). The author concludes that concern about the welfare of the poor is unwarranted, in both the short and long runs, if the compensatory program is implemented.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Safety Nets and Transfers,Services&Transfers to Poor,Rural Poverty Reduction

Earnings-related mandatory pensions : concepts for design

The author offers a framework for economic policy on mandatory earnings-related pensions. He does not discuss the gains and losses from mandating insurance and savings, nor the use of this policy as a vehicle for income redistribution. Instead, he concentrates on areas that are less well understood: the microeconomics, the macroeconomics, and the political economy of mandatory pensions. His analysis focuses on three main areas: insurance design, privatization, and degree of funding. In each area, he provides a checklist of design issues, drawn from international experience and economic analysis. For insurance, there are two sets of choices: between flat actuarial factor or individual actuarial factor and between defined benefit or defined contribution (in the sense of financial guarantee). For privatization, the essential choices are between private or nationalized provision, and between private or national demand. For funding, the choices are between funding or not funding, and between apparent funding or pay-as-you-go financing. Some combinations can be discarded. Privatization should not be combined with flat actuarial factors, for example, because private suppliers will compete for access to rents that accrue to workers who are awarded implicit subsidies. Privatization is compatible with apparent funding, but not with pay-as-you-go financing, because in the latter there are no funds to invest in the capital market. The policy choice is ultimately between two coherent designs whose relative advantages and drawbacks the author discusses. One, is an individual actuarial factor with privatized production and demand, with risk explicitly allocated to pensions, and with partial funding. Two, is a flat actuarial factor coupled with nationalized production, pay-as-you-go financing, and statutory promises of fixed real pensions (defined benefit).Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Economics&Finance,Insurance&Risk Mitigation,Pensions&Retirement Systems

Pension reform in small developing countries

The authors provide a framework in which small countries can assess the proper role for the state and the private sector in pension policy. Based on industrial organization theory and pension economics, this framework draws on experience in small countries. The authors identify how optimal pension policies can change in small countries (those with fewer than 1 million active contributors to pension funds), explore optimal pension reform design for small countries, and incorporate other stylized assumptions about small countries into the discussion: the relatively greater international mobility of labor and capital, the greater scarcity of human capital specialized in financial supervision and tax administration, fewer independent interests, and higher political volatility and risk over long time horizons. They conclude that: 1) For small countries the Chilean model should be modified to include greater reliance on international trade in financial services -- especially services that benefit from economies of scale and scope, such as collections, account processing, and benefit payments. Such an approach would require a greater harmonization of accounting and regulatory standards between small developing countries and the countries from which financial services are imported. 2) The unbundling of pension services is more advantageous in small than in large countries. 3) The collection of contributions and the payment of benefits (which are subject to substantial economies of scale for small countries) should be mandatorily unbundled from other pension services. 4) Those services should be provided separately to ensure competition in the selection of trustees and competitive investment management services. This type of pension system design may be preferable to having a foreign firm provide all pension services. 5) When other assumptions (such as susceptibility to large gross migration flows) are combined with the assumption of a small-country base, mandatory pension systems or fiscal incentives are found to be less effective in small than in large countries. Large countries have broader contribution bases and much smaller gross migration flows, making them demographically more stable. 6) The relatively greater international migration in small countries makes full funding of pension systems even more important in small than in large countries.Municipal Financial Management,Banks&Banking Reform,Health Economics&Finance,Pensions&Retirement Systems,Public Sector Economics&Finance

Administrative charges in pensions in Chile, Malaysia, Zambia, and the United States

The author offers a framework for an international comparison of charges in mandatory and private pension systems, and in state-run and privately managed systems. Such comparisons make it possible to determine which combinations of quality and cost make the most sense in pension services. He finds that: 1) Charges in the private annuity industry are much higher than other components of the pension package, and much higher than publicly provided annuities in the US; 2) comparing the collection function in different countries is difficult. In Chile, Malaysia and Zambia, the pension system must collect contributions on its own. In the US, the Social Security Administration piggybacks off the collection of federal income tax. A mandatory pension system could be used as a base for organizing other services, such as mandatory health care contributions and widely based income taxes, at a low marginal cost; 3) in the US, there is no reliable information on the cost of the active-life portion of social security; 4) Chilean AFPs (Administradoras de Fondos de Pensiones) charge slightly more for the active life portion of pension services than the international average for similar services, but appear to offer better quality service; and 5) marketing costs for Chilean AFPs -- which arise because of workers'freedom to select providers -- were just 6 percent of lifetime charges in 1991.Pensions&Retirement Systems,Health Economics&Finance,Urban Economics,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Banks&Banking Reform

Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV: Mapping the Milky Way, Nearby Galaxies, and the Distant Universe

We describe the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV), a project encompassing three major spectroscopic programs. The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2) is observing hundreds of thousands of Milky Way stars at high resolution and high signal-to-noise ratios in the near-infrared. The Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey is obtaining spatially resolved spectroscopy for thousands of nearby galaxies (median $z\sim 0.03$). The extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) is mapping the galaxy, quasar, and neutral gas distributions between $z\sim 0.6$ and 3.5 to constrain cosmology using baryon acoustic oscillations, redshift space distortions, and the shape of the power spectrum. Within eBOSS, we are conducting two major subprograms: the SPectroscopic IDentification of eROSITA Sources (SPIDERS), investigating X-ray AGNs and galaxies in X-ray clusters, and the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS), obtaining spectra of variable sources. All programs use the 2.5 m Sloan Foundation Telescope at the Apache Point Observatory; observations there began in Summer 2014. APOGEE-2 also operates a second near-infrared spectrograph at the 2.5 m du Pont Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, with observations beginning in early 2017. Observations at both facilities are scheduled to continue through 2020. In keeping with previous SDSS policy, SDSS-IV provides regularly scheduled public data releases; the first one, Data Release 13, was made available in 2016 July

Outcomes from elective colorectal cancer surgery during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

This study aimed to describe the change in surgical practice and the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on mortality after surgical resection of colorectal cancer during the initial phases of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic