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How to Make the Japanese Public Pension System Reliable and Workable
Author(s) -
TAKAYAMA Noriyuki,
KITAMURA Yukinobu
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
asian economic policy review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.58
H-Index - 20
eISSN - 1748-3131
pISSN - 1832-8105
DOI - 10.1111/j.1748-3131.2009.01112.x
Subject(s) - social security , pension , interim , national pension , agency (philosophy) , welfare , economics , corporate governance , social insurance , christian ministry , public economics , safety net , actuarial science , finance , political science , market economy , philosophy , epistemology , law
This paper has two objectives. The first is to identify current problems in Japan's pension administration. The chief problem is a weak governance structure. In particular, the current governance structure ignores the role of pension participants. A rigorous division and clear assignment of responsibilities to each of the pension participants, the Social Insurance Agency, and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is urgently needed. Given rapid demographic change, the second objective is to consider the case for full tax financing of the National Basic Pension. It is estimated that the net burden would vary across different cohorts, but we demonstrate that the net burden can be smoothed across different cohorts. This result is quite different from that in the 2008 Interim Report of the Japanese National Council on Social Security.