再评世界银行1994年《应对老龄化危机》:客观质疑与理性启示

A Review of Basic Ideas of the 1994 World Bank Report(Averting the Old Age):Several Questions and Policy Implications

中国主要依据世界银行1994年的报告对养老金制度实施激进改革之后已历20载。与许多其他采用而后放弃这个改革模式的国家一样,中国目前也面临着困境。本文从理论和过去20多年全球养老金改革实践两个角度,反思世界银行1994年报告的核心观点,希望可以帮助中国重建一个确保能提供更适当水平、并更具有财政可持续性的养老金制度。本文对积累制养老金,从是否能够应对人口老龄化并促进经济增长、对代际间收入分配是否公平、公共养老金在老年人收入中的份额及累进性、政策的比较优势与目标之间的匹配关系等角度进行了分析,指出:世界银行1994年的报告离一个基于科学证明的经验(实证)研究尚差很远,故发达国家均未采用这个改革模式,而是通过实施自动平衡机制解决了养老金制度的财政可持续性问题。本文建议中国采用记账制养老金来解决目前的困境。

It is 20 years after China made a drastic pension reform based on the 1994 World Bank(WB)report.China has been facing the problems similar to many other countries which have introduced the similar model and reversed.This paper reflects on the core proposals of the 1994 WB report in perspective of both economic theory and experiences all over the world for the past 20 years.The review may help China restructure her pension scheme to ensure more adequate and sustainable benefits.The paper discussed:the roles of funded pensions in withstanding population aging and promoting output growth,intergenerational equity,income share of public pension benefits and their progressivity,and the match between policy instrument and its objective.The analysis concluded that the 1994 WB report was not based on robust scientific evidences.Therefore,no developed country has followed the 1994 WB report to reform their pensions.Instead,they adopted automatic balance mechanism to get the financial problem settled down.This paper suggested China to introduce the notional defined contribution model.