新常态下经济特区社会保险发展研究——基于五大经济特区比较的视角

深圳、厦门、珠海、汕头、海南等经济特区地处改革开放前沿,市场经济发达,公民权利意识较强,社会矛盾较为突出,对社保工作提出了更高要求。目前经济特区社会保险发展的基本状况是:覆盖面不断扩大,基金收支增幅较大,经济适应性普遍不强,待遇标准逐渐提高。新常态下,经济特区面临着农民工社会保险问题凸显、社会养老负担日益严重、社保基金支付压力不断增大、社会保险的法治化程度不高等现实困境。推进经济特区社会保险发展,要着力于以下几个方面:完善经济特区农民工社会保险制度,提高农民工社会保障水平;建立多支柱的养老保险制度,推动经济特区养老服务业发展;加强经济特区社保基金的运营管理,保障社保基金安全有效运营;完善经济特区社保政策法规体系,提升社会保险的法治化程度。     

保障“社会保障”

日前，国家审计署在京召开了全国社会保障审计工作会议，审计署新成立的职能司局——社会保障审计司第一次组织了这类全国性审计专业会议。这表明，我国国家审计机关对社会保障资金初步建立了经常性审计监督制度，社会保障资金全面纳人审计监督视野。业内人士认为，这是我国社会保障事业健康发展的重要保障。社会保障审计着重非商业性社会保险我国的社会保障事业在近年有了长足发展，规模越来越大，涉及面越来越广。据悉，1997年全国基本养老、失业、医疗、工伤、生育等五项保险基金收人便达1500多亿元，支出1300多亿元，滚存结余1000多亿元…     

社会保险基金监督若干问题研究——兼论社会保险法（草案）第十章的完善

社会保险基金监督问题涉及社会公共利益，日益受到全社会的关注。国家《社会保险法（草案）》中对社会保险基金监督做了专章规定。现行国家社会保险基金监督的相关规定，确立了以行政监督为主导的监督模式。实践中，一些地方通过立法或者制定文件，确立了以财政预决算、收支两条线等方式对社会保险基金进行监督。在总结实践的基础上，结合国家社会保险立法，应从三方面入手构建我国的社会保险监督体系。一是建立权力机关监督、行政机关监督与社会监督相结合的多个主体参与的社保基金监督体系。二是针对基金征缴、管理和支付各个环节，设置适当的责任主体和监督主体。三是理顺监督各主体的监督职能和监督方式。使各监督主体的职能相互衔接，在监督方式上科学有效。     

关于完善我市社会保险管理体制的研究

我市从1987年开始推行职工社会养老保险以来，已开设有养老、工伤、失业、女职工生育和医疗五个险种，均由市劳动部门所属4个部门进行管理。主要表现在：一是政出多门，使社会保险难以统筹规划，协调发展；二是导致综合部门人力、物力、财力的重复投入，致使资源浪费；三是一个参保单位到多家办理社会保险业务，给企业带来诸多不便；四是社会保险基金难以实行“一票”征得。客观现实迫切要求社会保险建立统一的管理体制。     

中国国民年金制度设计的基本思路

由于中国现行的养老社会保险制度"碎片化"、多层次养老社会保险体系不完善以及政府财政对不同人口群体养老责任的不公平和歧视,迫切需要通过基础养老金国民化建立中国国民年金制度,以达到对现有养老社会保险制度进行整合和优化的目的,最终实现老有所养的目标。从养老社会保险制度发展的趋势、不同群体养老社会保险制度模式的同源性和政府财政支持能力来看,国民年金制度具有可行性。     

社会保险制度改革述评

记者最近从有关部门获悉,到本世纪末,我国社会保险制度改革总的目标是:在农村,初步建立以乡村为单位的互助合作型养老、医疗保险体系。在城镇,基本形成结构多层次、资金来源多渠道、费用基金化、管理服务社会化的社会保险体系。建立适用于多种所有制和多种经济成份中各类劳动者的统一制度、统一标准、基金调剂使用、统一管理的一体化的基本社会保险制度。     

加快信息管理系统建设 促进社会保险事业发展

社会保险包括养老、医疗、工伤、失业、住房和生育等险种，直接关系到人们的生老病死是否能得到切实的基本保障，关系到企业能否解除后顾之忧平等地参予市场竞争，关系到经济、社会能否健康、持续、稳定地发展。随着社会保险制度的建立健全，社会保险信息化管理越来越显现出它的重要性。本文拟就深圳市社会保险管理信息化建设问题谈几点认识。一、社会保险管理信息化的必强性我国的社会保险虽然在内容上已包括了职工的生老病死，但其养老、医疗、生育、住房等都维系在企业身上，直至八十年代仍基本处于企业自保的水平。在这个阶段，社会保险…     

积极应对人口老龄化

人口老龄化对我国养老、医疗保障制度运行和经济社会发展都会产生重大影响。长此以往,必然导致社会保险基金收支缺口逐步扩大,制度运行将会隐藏着重大危机。面对人口老龄化这一难题,我们需要采取一些措施来积极应对;构建完善的社会养老机构体系;提高退休年龄;积极稳妥推进养老保险基金投资运营;建立和完善多层次医疗保障体系。     

社会保险基金监管体系的形成与发展

社会保险基金监管是社会保险基金循环诸环节中至关重要的环节。研究社会保险基金监管体系的形成和类型,分析国外社会保险基金监管及其发展趋势,对加强社会保险基金监管,确保社会保险基金安全,实现社会保险基金运行诸环节的良性循环具有非常重要的指导意义。     

城乡养老社会保险制度一体化障碍性因素分析

体制性因素、经济性因素、人口性因素、公民权体系缺乏、农民利益表达权缺位以及技术性因素等是中国城乡养老社会保险制度一体化的阻碍性因素,实现城乡养老社会保险制度一体化必须加快构建农村养老社会保险体系,加大政府财政转移支付的力度,加快农村剩余劳动力的转移和养老社会保险技术建设。     

Socioeconomic Investment Practices of State Pension Funds: The Results of a National Survey

State pension fund managers appear to be under increasing pressure to promote social, ethical, or economic development goals with at least some of their investments. This article offers a conceptual framework for considering socioeconomic investing by these funds, and uses it in a national survey of state pension fund investment practices. True "social" investing, involving the expected sacrifice of market average rates of return for social or ethical goals, appears to be much less widespread than expected. However, the survey also suggests that policies and procedures designed to insure the prudence and accountability of fund managers with regard to socioeconomic investing may not be in place in many states.     

Public Pension Funds and Operating Budgets: A Tale of Three States

This article provides a normative framework for understanding the important link between public pension fund management and government operating budgets. Three aspects of pension fund management are discussed that have a significant impact on the operating budget: pension contribution, investment strategy, and the funding of pension liabilities. Three cases concerning West Virginia, New Jersey, and New York City are discussed to illustrate these three important aspects. The normative framework and the case studies demonstrate two important principles in prudently managing public pension funds: ensuring intergenerational equity and protecting the long-term health of government budgets.     

Design and implementation issues in Swedish individual pension accounts

Sweden's new multipillar pension system includes a system of mandatory fully funded individual accounts. The Swedish system offers contributors more than 600 fund options from a variety of private-sector fund managers. However, in the most recent rounds of fund choice, more than 90 percent of new labor market entrants have not made an active choice of funds and thus have ended up in a government-sponsored default fund. The Swedish system offers a number of lessons about implementing a mandatory individual account tier. Centralized administration keeps administrative costs down but requires considerable lead time. A very large number of fund options are likely to be offered unless strong entry barriers are in place. Engaging new labor market entrants in fund choice is likely to be difficult. A significant percentage of those making an active fund choice may choose funds that are very specialized and risky. Finally, special care must be devoted to designing a default fund and continual consumer communication.     

Social Security: a financial appraisal for the median voter

Several explanations have been proposed for why voters continue to support unfunded social security systems. Browning (1975) suggests that the extremely large unfunded pension systems of most democracies depend on the existence of a voting majority composed of middle-aged and older people who fail to fully internalize the cost of financing the system. In fact, when voting, economically rational workers consider only their current and future contributions to the system and their expected pension benefits--not their past contributions, which they regard as sunk costs. If, for a majority of voters, the expected continuation return from social security exceeds the return from alternative assets, an unfunded social security system is politically sustainable. This article explores the validity of Browning's proposition by quantifying the returns that U.S. voters in presidential elections from 1964 to 1996 have obtained, or expect to obtain, from Social Security. Did "investments" in Social Security outperform alternative forms of investment, such as mutual funds or pension funds, for a majority of the voters? What can be expected for the future? The U.S. Social Security system redistributes income within age cohorts on the basis of sex, income, and marital status. To account for some of these features, the median voter is represented by a family unit whose members--a husband who accounts for 70 percent of household earnings and a wife who accounts for 30 percent--make joint economic and voting decisions. Thus, retirement and survival benefits paid out to the spouse of an insured worker can be included in the calculation of Social Security returns. Interval estimates of voters' family incomes from the U.S. Census Bureau were used to obtain the median voter's household earnings. The median voter's age is derived from the ages of those who voted in presidential elections, not from the ages of the entire electorate. The median voter's contributions to Social Security are the product of the joint employer/employee Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) tax rate and employee earnings. Data on actual contributions are available for median voters in the 1964 to 1976 elections; Social Security Administration (SSA) estimates are used for future tax rates and average wage growth rates. Data on actual old-age, retirement, and survivor benefits, as well as estimates of future benefits, are also available from SSA. Analysis of ex-post returns from "investing" in Social Security and from a buy-and-hold strategy applied to three alternative assets--the Standard & Poor's Composite Index (S&P), the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), and U.S. government bonds--shows surprising results. In 1964 and 1968, Social Security largely outperformed the other three assets. In 1972, Social Security and the stock market performed almost equally. In 1976, however, the median voter would have been better off in the stock market. The expected returns for median voters in later elections cannot be directly compared with realized returns from alternative assets. However, estimates range from 5.7 percent in 1984 to 7.0 percent in 1996 and thus compare favorably with average returns of 5.6 percent for S&P, 5.3 percent for DJIA, and 2.1 percent for government bonds over the 1964-1996 period. Although these findings must be taken with caution since they compare ex-post returns, they show that, despite a continuous reduction in profitability, Social Security still represents a safe, high-return asset for a majority of families.     

Promotion Tournament,Labor Market Tightening and Pension Generosity: A Comparative Public Policy Analysis of Pension System for Urban Workers in China (1997–2013)

Abstract

This article conducts a comparative public policy analysis of China’s generous urban worker basic pension system. It is commonly believed that Chinese local governments, which are motived by office-seeking incentives under decentralization, may foster economic growth at the expense of citizens’ social rights and thus “promotion tournament competition” comes into being. This article challenges this view by arguing that such competition can increase the generosity of social programs such as public pensions, especially in the condition of labor scarcity. This argument is supported by time-series cross-section analysis of 31 Chinese provincial units (1997–2013) using a novel indicator of the intensity of inter-locality competition. When the labor market tightens, workers can leave a locality to seek better compensation. Motivated by the promotion tournament competition to develop the local economy, which requires the issue of labor shortage to be addressed, local governments then provide generous local pension schemes to retain workers. Operating in a macroeconomic climate of labor scarcity, promotion tournament competition becomes an unlikely catalyst for welfare expansion in China.     

Worldwide trends and developments in social security, 1985-87

This article highlights major trends and developments in social security programs featured in the publication Social Security Programs Throughout the World, 1987. Certain developments observable in industrialized countries, especially in Europe--continuing high unemployment levels, particularly among the young; growing numbers of long-term unemployed; and aging populations--tend to create financial instability in social security programs. Thus, as program costs continue to rise, the emphasis on cost-effective use of social security funds becomes more pronounced. In the period under review, this concern is reflected in the widening interest in mandated private pension supplementation of social security, as well as in measures to encourage employment. In developing countries, a strengthening of programs for families and, in some instances, a lowering of the retirement age are noted, in addition to a general expansion in the benefit structure of the work-injury program.     

The Politics of Occupational Pension Reform in Britain and the Netherlands: The Power of Market Discipline in Liberal and Corporatist Regimes

The politics of occupational pension reform has attracted less attention than state pension retrenchment. Yet, in countries with large occupational welfare sectors changes in company provision can be equally important for welfare system generosity. This paper compares recent occupational pension developments in the Netherlands and Britain, exemplars of coordinated and liberal capitalism. The paper argues that despite regime-typical differences in the nature and process of change, recent developments have also been remarkably similar. In both countries retrenchment and individualisation has left most citizens at risk of being less well off in retirement. Corporatist governance in the Netherlands has not challenged the overall orientation of this process, but has merely distributed the costs of retrenchment more fairly than liberal Britain. Instead, the constraints of the globalised financial market directed change: exposure to market discipline, reinforced by national policy actors and international market regulators, made occupational provision vulnerable to retrenchment regardless of regime type. Thus, the significance for levels of social protection of differences between liberal and corporatist governance models of occupational pensions may have been overrated.     

What Do Corporations Owe Citizens?

Institutional investors occupy an important location in the corporate governance system in countries with high shareholding, such as the US. As these are also countries where pensions are heavily invested in equities, the pension and corporate governance systems intersect, though they are usually analyzed separately. Institutional investors could play a more active role in corporate governance, but many if not most have not done so. Public pension funds are more proactive on corporate governance transparency issues than are the privately held funds, in part because the latter have some conflict of interest between those who own the parent firm and those who invest in the funds. Overall, institutional investors in the US have fewer powers over the managers than do the UK counterparts. Debates over SEC Rule 14a-8 which would give more power to IIs reflects the views and influence of competing lobbies on each side of the battleground among shareholders, managers, and employees over the cash flow of the firm, a battleground in which pension funds are increasingly important players.

强制性企业年金制度及其对金融发展的影响——澳大利亚、冰岛和瑞士三国案例分析

分析了澳大利亚、冰岛和瑞士三国建立强制性企业年金制度的历史原因,以及该制度的基本特征,考察了三国企业年金基金的投资管理,在分析现有数据的基础上,通过比较分析表明:企业年金资产要独立于雇主企业和政府,这是建立良好治理结构的前提;增加企业年金计划的竞争性、提高信息披露程度、增强决策透明度是提高企业年金投资回报率的有效手段;审慎和恰当的政府监管是企业年金发展的重要条件;在适当控制风险的前提下,追求投资回报率仍是企业年金最重要的目标。从养老金制度的充足性、可负担性、可持续性和稳健性四个方面评估了强制性企业年金制度的作用,从而得出:强制性企业年金制度不仅实现了全面覆盖,而且在保障养老金制度可负担、可持续和稳健性的同时较好地实现了充足性的目标。利用格兰杰因果检验,实证分析了澳大利亚和冰岛两国企业年金发展和金融发展之间存在的协整关系:澳大利亚的企业年金发展和金融发展互为格兰杰因果关系,而冰岛企业年金发展是该国金融发展的格兰杰原因。     

Recalibrating social protection: Electoral competition and the new partisan politics of the welfare state

This article investigates the new party politics of welfare states with a particular focus on electoral competition. The argument is that welfare state politics are no longer just about more or less, but involve trade-offs among ‘new’ versus ‘old’ social rights, and hence social investment versus social consumption. However, party priorities on these issues are highly dependent upon their electoral situation. As electoral competition becomes more intense, parties focus more on vote maximisation than on their traditional policy goals. For left parties, this means focusing more on social investment, which appeals to their growing constituency of progressive sociocultural professionals, and less on defending the traditional income maintenance programmes favoured by their core blue-collar voters. Centre-right parties, on the other hand, should hesitate to retrench old social rights when electoral competition intensifies because they need to prioritise their appeal to culturally conservative working-class voters over their traditional fiscally conservative policy profiles. Using a new dataset and a recently published measure of electoral competitiveness, the article shows that as electoral competition intensifies, left governments are willing to prioritise social investment by reducing pension rights generosity in order to expand programmes for new social risks, while centre-right governments by contrast avoid retrenchment of pension rights and pension expenditures. The findings demonstrate that this relationship is moderated by the presence of a credible radical right challenger, which increases the electoral risk of welfare state recalibration.