Sistemi pensionistici e analisi economica: un riesame critico

The dominant opinion is that we are facing a serious crisis of the pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension system. The proposal is the progressive substitution of PAYG with a capitalisation system (CS). The paper begins with a reconsideration of the controversy between Samuelson (1958) and Lerner (1959) on the economic interpretation of PAYG. Samuelson based his interpretation of PAYG on an insurance fiction. Lerner argued that PAYG is a a "tax-pay" system. The paper concludes that the actuarial configuration actually taken by PAYG does not depend on any endogenous logic, but on exogeneous social and economic circumstances. The second half of the paper traces the roots of the CS in the marginalist notion of capital as a fund of consumption goods whose utilisation is postponed. The often ill understood difficulties of the so-called "transition" from PAYG to CS are briefly recalled. Even if these difficulties were solved, the CS would meet the keynesian criticism to the neoclassical relation between saving and investment later reinforced by the results of the capital theory controversy. JEL Classification: E1, H55;

Sergio Cesaratto, Sistemi pensionistici e analisi economica: un riesame critico in "STUDI ECONOMICI " 71/2000, pp , DOI: