Recently, Professor Ning Lei, Deputy Director of the Macroeconomics Division at the School of Economics, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, has had his co-authored paper The impact of pension reforms and rapid aging on savings and the labor supply: The case of China officially published in Journal of Public Economics, a top-tier international economics journal.
Abstract
Over the past three decades, China has experienced substantial reductions in social security benefits due to pension reforms and undergone profound demographic changes. By combining empirical studies and quantitative analyses in a general equilibrium setting, this paper examines the effects of China’s pension reforms and rapid population aging on household saving and labor supply behaviors. Calibrating the model to the Chinese economy, we find that the pension reforms alone account for approximately 25 percent of the increase in the household saving rate between 1995 and 2009, and 49 percent of the sharp rise in labor supply over the same period. These effects are significantly amplified by rapid aging. Our study demonstrates that both household saving and labor supply serve as quantitatively important self-insurance channels in response to changes in pension generosity and longevity risk.
Ning Lei is Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at the School of Economics, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. His research focuses on macroeconomics and the Chinese economy. He has published numerous papers in English journals including International Economic Review, Journal of Public Economics and Macroeconomic Dynamics, as well as in Chinese journals such as Management World, China Economic Quarterly and China Industrial Economics. He has presided over two National Natural Science Foundation projects.
