The U.S. Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) program has grown dramatically over the last 20 years in size and expense. This growth poses significant risks to the finances of the DI program and ...the broader Social Security system, and raises troubling questions as to whether the program is being misused by claimants. This article first provides an overview of the Disability Insurance program, describing who qualifies for the program, how an individual applies for benefits and how the level of benefits is determined. Next, we summarize the factors responsible for the growth in the DI rolls and discuss how the characteristics of DI recipients have changed as a result. We then explore the extent of moral hazard in the DI program and the effectiveness of the screening process in distinguishing meritorious from nonmeritorious claims. Finally, we identify the challenges that the DI program creates for Social Security finances and Social Security reform, and discuss potential reforms to the DI program.
To what extent do international organizations, global policy networks, and transnational policy entrepreneurs influence domestic policy makers? Have we entered a new phase of globalization that, ...unbeknownst to most citizens, shapes policies that used to be the sole domain of domestic politics?Privatizing Pensionsreveals how international institutions--such as the World Bank, USAID, and other transnational policy actors--have played a seminal role in the development, diffusion, and implementation of new pension reforms that are transforming the postwar social contract in more than thirty countries worldwide, including the United States.
Mitchell Orenstein shows how transnational actors have driven change in a policy area once thought to be beyond reform in many countries, and how they have done so by deploying their unique resources and legitimacy to promote new ideas, recruit disciples worldwide, and provide a broad range of technical assistance to government reformers over the long term. He demonstrates that while domestic decision makers may retain veto power over these reforms--which replace traditional social security with individual pension savings accounts--transnational policy makers play the role of "proposal actors," shaping the information, preferences, and resources of their domestic clients.
Privatizing Pensionsargues that even the most quintessentially domestic areas of policy have been thoroughly globalized, and that these international influences must be better understood.
In 1995, the Social Security Administration started sending out the annual Social Security Statement. It contains information about the worker's estimated benefits at the ages 62, 65, and 70. I use ...this unique natural experiment to analyze the retirement and claiming decision making. First, I find that, despite the previous availability of information, the Statement has a significant impact on workers' knowledge about their benefits. These findings are consistent with a model where workers need to gather costly information in order to improve their retirement decision. Second, I use this exogenous variation in knowledge to analyze the optimality of workers' decisions. Several findings suggest that workers do not change their retirement behavior: i) Workers do not change their expected age of retirement after receiving the Statement; ii) monthly claiming patterns do not show any change after the introduction of the Social Security Statement; iii) workers do not become more sensitive to Social Security incentives after receiving the Statement. More research is needed to establish whether workers are already behaving optimally, but the information contained in the Statement is not sufficient to improve their retirement behavior.
► I exploit the stepwise introduction of Social Security Statement to analyze retirement behavior. ► The Statement has a significant impact on workers' knowledge about their benefits. ► Information appears to be costly. ► But workers do not show any change in behavior. ► Information contained in the Statement is not sufficient to improve their retirement behavior.
This book explains how the success of attempts to expand the boundaries of the postwar welfare state in The Netherlands and the United Kingdom depended on organized labor's willingness to support ...redistribution of risk and income among different groups of workers. By illuminating and explaining differences within and between labor union movements, it traces the historical origins of 'inclusive' and 'dual' welfare systems. In doing so, the book shows that labor unions can either have a profoundly conservative impact on the welfare state or act as an impelling force for progressive welfare reform. Based on an extensive range of archive material, this book explores the institutional foundations of social solidarity.
El presente artículo da a conocer los resultados de un estudio exploratorio enfocado a indagar las características de la evaluación diagnóstica de la escritura académico-científica en estudiantes de ...doctorado. Esta forma de caracterizar la escritura busca pensar con los profesionales que cursan carreras de posgrado en alternativas de participación en prácticas y comunidades de escritura que amplíen las oportunidades de interacción y potencien la identidad enunciativa. Sin duda, cultivar la cualidad de autor y exhibirla ante la comunidad científica supone esforzarse por dejar oír su voz en medio del concierto de voces que han legitimado su presencia con planteamientos y perspectivas canónicas. La muestra de estudio, elegida por conveniencia, estuvo conformada por 74 doctorandos en Educación y Sociedad de la Universidad de La Salle en Bogotá, Colombia, a partir de quienes respondieron una encuesta en línea y, posteriormente, 9 de ellos participaron voluntariamente en el análisis de los resultados mediante tres grupos focales.
En el libro Todo cambió de Josías López Gómez está en juego la construcción del Yo a través de la memoria autobiográfica. Esta noción, al referirse a una "experiencia de vida" de cada sujeto en la ...investigación experimental, en la literatura la concibo como parte de una "experiencia estética" de configuración del sujeto narrativo a través del tiempo. En el relato literario, la memoria autobiográfica la analizo, por un lado, mediante elementos de la narratología que me permiten ver el movimiento del Yo discursivo en el tiempo y espacio textual; por otro lado, es necesario complementar la investigación con datos obtenidos a partir del contexto de producción de la obra y de entrevistas al autor para engarzar su experiencia de vida con algunos personajes que le permiten construir un nuevo sujeto narrativo a la luz de un sujeto ficticio que se piensa y cuestiona desde la modernidad. Palabras clave: autoficción, memoria autobiográfica, narrativa del yo, cuento tseltal, identidades fronterizas. The book Todo cambió (Everything Changed) by Josías López Gómez engages in the construction of self through autobiographical memory. This notion can refer to the "life experience" of each subject in an experimental investigation; in literature, I conceive it as part of an "aesthetic experience" of the narrative subject's configuration across time. In López Gómez's literary works, I analyze autobiographical memory, on the one hand, through narratological elements that permit me to see the movement of the discursive self in textual time and space; on the other hand, it is necessary to complement the research with information from the work's creative context and interviews with the author. The analysis shows how connects his own experience with some of his characters to construct a new narrative subject in light of a fictional subject conceived in and questioning from modernity. Keywords: autofiction, autobiographical memory, self-narrative, Tseltal literature, border identities.
China's pension system Dorfman, Mark C; Holzmann, Robert; O’Keefe, Philip ...
2012., 2013, 02-26-2013, 2013-02-27, 2012-12-15, 20120101
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China is at a critical juncture in its economic transition. A comprehensive reform of its pension and social security systems is an essential element of a strategy aimed toward achieving a harmonious ...society and sustainable development. Among policy makers, a widely held view is that the approach to pension provision and reform efforts piloted over the last 10-15 years is insufficient to enable China's economy and population to realize its development objectives in the years ahead. This volume suggests a national pension system that no longer distinguishes along urban and rural locational or hukou lines yet takes account of the diverse nature of employment relations and capacity of individuals to make contributions. This volume is organized as follows: the main text outlines this vision, focusing on summarizing the key features of a proposed long-term pension system. It first examines key trends motivating the need for reform then outlines the proposed three-pillar design and the rationale behind the design choices. It then moves on to examine financing options. The text continues by discussing institutional reform issues, and the final section concludes. The six appendixes provide additional analytical detail supporting the findings in the main text. The pension system design can play an important role in supporting or constraining such economic and demographic transitions: 1) fragmentation and lack of portability of rights hinder labor market efficiency and contribute to coverage gaps; 2) multiple schemes for salaried workers, civil servants, and, in some areas, migrants similarly impact labor markets; 3) legacy costs that are largely financed through current pension contributions weaken incentives for compliance and accurate wage reporting; 4) very limited risk pooling and interurban resource transfers limit the insurance function of the urban pension system and create spatial disparities in old-age income protection; 5) low retirement ages affect incentives and benefits and undermine fiscal sustainability; and 6) relatively low returns on individual accounts result in replacement rates significantly less than anticipated while at the macro level, are likely to inhibit wider efforts to stimulate higher domestic consumption.
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