老後所得保障制度 統合運營의 基本方向과 經濟的 效果

Pension Reform and Its Economic Effects

Confronting the public pension crisis in Korea, this paper suggests a pension reform and theoretically investigates its economic effects. The crisis mainly stems not only from the rapidly aging population in Korea but also from the high internal rates of returns due to excessively progressive benefit formula. The benefit formula in the Korean public pension system consists of two parts; one is the base part which is equal among all the beneficiaries, and the second is the income-dependent part which is proportional to each beneficiary’s pre-retirement wage level. An excessive progressivity from relatively large portion of the current base part in the benefit formula is known to be a major factor in generating the financing problem in the Korean public pension system. The reform suggested in this paper begins with separating the base part from the benefit formula and maintaining it to the subsistence benefit level. The second step of the reform is to adopt “contracting-out” of the income-dependent part in the public pension benefit formula such that the part can be replaced by either corporate pension or individual pension. The reform can partly solve the financing problem in the public pension system by lowering the internal rate of return in the process of separating the base part. Moreover, theoretical analysis indicates that the reform can significantly reduce variability of financing status from changing interest rates.