Economic Crises, High Public Pension Spending and Blame-avoidance Strategies : Pension Policy Retrenchments in 14 Social-insurance Countries, 1981–2005

摘要

This paper examines the determinants of the timing of public pension policy retrenchmentsin 14 affluent democracies. Available research does not satisfactorily capture themultidimensionality of these legislative events, because it relies on indicators of pensionpolicy provisions for current pensioners even though recent retrenchment pensionreforms have been characterized by phased-in or grandfathering measures. Instead,this paper identifies these events by considering the individual long-term implicationsof each pension reform passed in 14 OECD social-insurance countries between 1981and 2005. Based on a synthetic review of the pension policy literature, data from financialprojections, and principles from the economics of welfare programs, I identify62 pension retrenchments passed in these countries. My argument is that macroeconomicconditions, the size of the public pension system, and the stage in the electoralcycle shape the likelihood of pension retrenchments. Results obtained from conditionalfrailty models for recurrent and sequential events support this argument. The intervalbetween pension retrenchments is shorter in countries with low economic growth andhigh public pension spending, as well as in countries in a post-election year.