Pension reform, capital markets, and the rate of return | Munich Center for the Economics of Aging - MEA
Home
Publications

Publication Series of the MPI for Social Policy

Pension reform, capital markets, and the rate of return

Content This paper discusses the consequences of population aging and a fundamental pension reform – that is, a shift towards more pre-funding – for capital markets in Germany. We use a stylized closed-economy, overlapping-generations model to compare the effects of the recent German pension reform with those of a more decisive reform that would freeze the current pay-as-you-go contribution rate and thus result in a larger funded component of the pension system. We predict rates of return to capital under both reform scenarios over a long horizon, taking demographic projections as given. Our main finding is that the future decrease in the rate of return is much smaller than often claimed in the public debate. Our simulations show that the capital stock will decrease once the baby boom generations enter retirement even if there were no fundamental pension reform. The corresponding decrease in the rate of return, the direct effect of population aging, is around 0.7 percentage points. While the capital market effects of the recent German pension reform are marginal, the rate of return to capital would decrease by an additional 0.5 percentage points under the more decisive reform proposal.
Publication Details
Boersch-Supan

Axel Börsch-Supan

csm_csm_FlorianHeiss_60f97b703e_b69b0a5503

Florian Heiß

csm_csm_ludwig_ec3d1edc9c_261289bc47

Alexander Ludwig

mpisoc-user-default

Christoph Winter

2002
View