| In recent years,the aging population in China has become increasingly prominent,with the elderly population projected to continue growing for the next forty years,while the labor force and child populations are expected to decline.This will become one of the most significant features of the demographic shift in China.As the degree of population aging deepens,the speed of economic growth will gradually slow down,and the sustainability of the pension system will face severe challenges.To confront the challenges brought by aging,China needs to foster the collaborative development of the three pillars of the pension system to alleviate the payment pressure on the basic pension,the first pillar.Consequently,the State Council Office issued the "Opinions on Promoting the Development of Individual Pensions" in April 2022,marking a new stage of comprehensive development and improvement in China’s three-pillar pension system.Internationally,countries have been reforming their pension systems,transitioning from single-pillar to three-pillar systems.The three-pillar pension system has gained wide recognition and continues to be refined and explored.However,the three-pillar pension system in China is not yet fully designed,and relevant research is limited,lacking solid foundational theoretical study and discussion.Therefore,the effectiveness and potential sustainability of pension policies require further scientific calculations and evaluations.The coordinated development of the three-pillar pension system is an important element in promoting the development and improvement of China’s pension system and an effective strategy to deal with the challenges brought by aging.Although China has already established a three-pillar pension system,the coverage and market activity of corporate pensions and individual pensions continue to decline.Therefore,scholars have begun to explore how to promote the coordinated development of the three-pillar pension system.Foreign scholars’ research mainly focuses on two aspects: investigating the multi-level reform issues of developing countries,particularly those in transition,and addressing the multi-pillar pension system reform problems in developed countries.Moreover,scholars have discussed solutions to current pension issues through parametric reforms,such as reducing basic pension fees,increasing the rate of return on individual account pension fund investments,and encouraging participation of the informally employed group.Through research and practice on the coordinated development of the three-pillar pension system,policy objectives such as the sustainability of the pension system and promoting economic growth can be achieved,and it can also effectively enhance the public governance capability of the government.As the three-pillar pension system in China enters a new phase of development,it is necessary to deeply analyze the system’s connotations and extensions from a theoretical perspective.It is crucial to clarify the economic effects of the coordinated development of the three-pillar pension system,propose optimization paths for policies,and deal with aging,promote the sustainable development of pensions,and achieve economic growth.Based on existing research,this paper deeply studies the economic effects of the coordinated development of the three-pillar pension system.In Chapter 3,the necessity of coordinated development is discussed,and the development experience of OECD countries is borrowed to provide insights for China’s three-pillar pension system.In Chapter 4,the scale of the three pillars of pensions is calculated through a population model predicting changes in population structure,and sensitivity analysis is conducted to determine the feasibility of coordinated development of the three pillars.In Chapter 5,the economic mechanism of the three-pillar pension system is explored.Using the classic overlapping generations model,the transmission mechanism of the pension system to various economic variables is analyzed.Based on this,an economic system model is constructed in Chapter 6.In the expanded overlapping generations model,the three-pillar pension system is included in the same analytical framework.By analyzing the change in the pension contribution rate of each pillar,the influence of the coordinated and harmonious development of the pension system on various economic variables is discussed.Specifically,an in-depth exploration of material capital levels,human capital growth rates,pension replacement rates,and income redistribution is conducted.Finally,in Chapter 7,different model parameters are set to simulate the impact of different pension policy combinations on welfare levels,aiming to achieve the "perfect match" effect of coordinated development policy of the threepillar pension system.This paper possibly innovates and contributes to the existing literature in the field in the following aspects: Firstly,it proposes the theoretical basis for promoting the coordinated development of the three-pillar pension system in China.There is little theoretical research on the impact mechanism of the coordinated development of the three-pillar pension system in China,and the theoretical insights of this paper can provide theoretical support for building a sustainably developed three-pillar pension system.Secondly,it uses macroeconomic theory to model the three-pillar pension system and conduct numerical simulations,exploring what expected development goals can be achieved with the implementation of different policies.In addition,this paper also calculates the gap in the first pillar of the pension and the scale of the second and third pillar pensions based on changes in population structure and analyses the possibility of filling the pension gap,which is related to the long-term healthy development of the three-pillar pension system.Finally,different pension policy combinations’ impacts on residents’ and societal welfare levels are simulated using pilot practice,exploring feasible development paths.The conclusions of this paper are as follows: Firstly,the three-pillar pension system is an important policy tool for achieving a balance of fairness and efficiency.Secondly,the results calculated using the Leslie model suggest that China will face a severe aging crisis in the next 40 years,with considerable pressure on the pension gap.The introduction of the second and third pillar pensions can fill the gap in the basic pension of the first pillar,improve the replacement rate of the overall pension system,and ensure the pension replacement rate for future retirees.Thirdly,this paper builds multiple overlapping generations general equilibrium models to analyze the economic effects of the coordinated development of the three-pillar pension system from multiple perspectives.It finds that the coordinated development of the three-pillar pension system can effectively respond to the challenges brought by the decline in fertility and aging to the pension system.Specifically,it can reduce the contribution rate of the first pillar pension,while vigorously developing the second and third pillar pensions,to ensure the pension replacement rate level,enhance effective labor capital per unit,and improve the human capital growth rate per unit.Overall,this policy can enhance the welfare level of the whole society,accelerate the population’s transition from quantity to quality,and ensure economic growth.Fourthly,this paper verifies through current data and model calculations that gradually reducing the replacement rate of the first pillar pension for different age groups upon retirement to achieve a balance in the income and expenditure of the first pillar pension,while introducing the second and third pillar pensions,can effectively guarantee the welfare levels of residents and society.The coordinated development policy of the three-pillar pension system can minimize the replacement rate decline and its welfare loss caused by the need to ensure the balance of income and expenditure of the basic pension of the first pillar under the aging population,and ensure the welfare level of all age groups.By simulating various policy combinations,this research finds that the policy effect of increasing the current third-pillar contribution limit while promoting the coordinated development of the three-pillar pension system is the best. |
