Alternative Social Security Systems And Growth

Demographic trends in most developed economies are characterized by rising longevity and decreasing birthrates. These trends endanger the sustainability of the current public pension systems. Therefore social security reform proposals are on the agenda in many countries. This paper demonstrates that the analysis of fiscal sustainability of social security must include an additional dimension of public policy, namely education funding. Indeed, the productivity growth of future workers, which depends on human capital accumulation, may outweigh the impact of the demographic problem. This fact is true under both Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) and Fully Funded (FF) social security system.