Yves Mersch: The Luxembourg experience, resistance to reform and
main avenues for change in Europe
Speech by Mr Yves Mersch, Governor of the Central Bank of Luxembourg, at the conference
"The ageing of Europe's population - consequences and reforms", organized by the Bank of
Greece, Athens, 17 January 2008.
* * *
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is certainly a pleasure to address such a distinguished audience on the subject of ageing
populations and the ensuing need for reform.
Economic change is accelerating. Globalisation and technological evolution are drivers of
change, but the dramatic consequence of slow adjustment of national economies is further
exacerbated by the dramatic and structural demographic change in Europe.
Low fertility rates, the continuous extension of life expectancy and the retirement of the baby
boom generations will in the coming decades exert professional, economic, budgetary and
social consequences.
The impact of ageing population on real economic activity feeds through many channels. A
recent survey by the European Commission (EC) and the Economic Policy Committee (EPC)
has focused on the labour market, education, long-term care and health care as well as
pensions.
The main finding is that between 2004 and 2011, both demographic and employment
developments will be supportive of growth. This period can be viewed as a window of
opportunity for pursuing structural reforms. Between 2012 and 2017 rising employment rates
will roughly offset the decline in the working-age population. During this period the working
age population will start to decline as the baby-boom generation enters retirement. The
continued projected increase in the employment rates of women and older workers might to
some extent alleviate the demographic factors, but we might also witness tightening labour
market conditions, growing skill mismatches and the risk of heightened wage pressures. The
ageing effect will dominate as of 2018 and both the size of the working age population and
the number of persons employed will be on a downward trajectory.
As a result potential GDP growth rate is expected to fall from 2.2% in the first period to 1.8%
from 2011-2030 and 1.3% thereafter. Employment will have a negative contribution to growth
that would mostly depend on labour productivity or technological progress.
For the euro area public spending is projected to increase by about 4% a year between now
and 2050.
I will focus on the pension issue, since the rise in the old age dependency ratio is the
dominant factor increasing public spending in the coming decades. This is in particular the
case in reform lagging countries with particular generous pension systems, like Luxembourg
and Greece. Indeed pension reforms have been enacted in most countries of the EC and in
half of them appear to have curtailed significantly the projected increase in public spending
on pensions. Pension spending appears to be most sensitive to changes in life expectancy
that rip apart the actuarial equilibrium of pay-as-you-go schemes. These pension schemes
are nationally grown and closely associated with the history and culture of a society.
I will first try to examine why the most generous systems seem to be the most resistant to
change, then go through some of the arguments used against reform and finally establish a
scoreboard of possible reforms.
I. Resistance to change
According to the E.C. the largest challenges on pension expenditure in the EU are faced by
Portugal, Luxembourg and Spain. Greece is however missing in the statistics. Within the new
EU countries Cyprus, Slovenia, Hungary and the Czech Republic would face the biggest
challenges.
Among these countries the OECD 2007 report "Pensions at a glance" ranks the countries
according to the generosity of pension promises. Different retirement-income indicators put
Greece and Luxembourg at the top.
Gross pension replacement rates in the OECD tend to be the lowest in the six mainly
English-speaking countries with stronger neoliberal influences. They are the highest in the
five Southern European nations, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey. If we look at the
low earners the highest replacement rate is found in Denmark, while among the high earners
Greece offers the highest pension reflecting both a high accrual rate and a high ceiling on
pensionable earnings.
1) This shows the first problem for reform. Pension schemes tend to mix an insurance policy
for the level of living with social policy with redistributive elements. The border line between
these two elements is not clear, but is fertile ground for inconclusive discussions.
Whether the efficiency of the redistributive element beyond the level of a safety net is to be
gauged is another question. In Denmark a low-income worker earns more once a pensioner
than during his productive life.
In other countries, the spectrum of benefit design is more oriented towards an insurance
scheme which aims to pay the same replacement rate to all workers when they retire.
This table shows that the most generous schemes are actually closer to insurance schemes
and the need for actuarial equilibrium is therefore all the more necessary.
But inevitably pensions interact with tax. Therefore the better measure might be net
replacement rates.
2) Second insight. A pension reform with lower benefits in order to mitigate longer life
expectancy and hence preserve the financial balance of pension schemes might result in
demands for more generous tax treatment (deductions, allowances, credits) and the final
result on public finances therefore needs careful observation. While the net replacement rate
is on average 70% in the OECD, the gross replacement figure is 11% lower.
For example Belgium and Germany have considerably higher net replacement rates than
gross. However, Germany is now gradually withdrawing the current, very generous fiscal
treatment of pension income.
The OECD report notes that "the 'traditional' way of encouraging voluntary savings for
retirement has been through tax incentives. However these can be expensive and there is
strong evidence that they are inefficient, in that much of the saving would have happened
anyway without the incentive; in addition tax incentives are counterproductive from the social
perspective, as they tend to be worth more for higher earners, for example."
New insights of behavioural economics about people's natural inertia encourage private
pension saving through soft coercion. In New Zealand people are required to save unless
they opt out.
What matters for governments, however, is only the replacement rate, for how long the
pension benefit must be paid and how its value evolves over time, that is the stock of future
flows of pension benefits. According to the OECD report, Luxembourg pays to each
pensioner close to 1 Mio € or 20 times individual earnings at the time of retirement! The
Netherlands and Greece rank second and third on this measure.
If we look at net pension wealth, taking taxes and social security contributions into account,
there is no change in country ratings according to the generosity of their pension promises.
Please do not look at the graphics but at the note.
At BCL we have reassessed the assumptions of the OECD calculations. Even using the most
conservative assumptions the actuarial disequilibrium, namely the disequilibrium between the
present value of social security contributions and of future pensions amounts to a bonus of
roughly 300.000,- EUR in Luxembourg at a life expectancy of 87 years for a retirement at 65.
The system is however skewed towards inciting contributors to leave at age 60, which brings
us closer to the OECD figures mentioned (the apparent discrepancy with the OECD also
reflects the fact that the OECD calculated the present value of future pensions, whereas the
BCL figure refers to the difference between (i) the present value of future pensions and (ii)
the present value of social contributions paid during the career).
3) History is in many respects an explanation for the capacity to change. The most radical
reforms were enacted in some of the new member countries eager to switch to a market
economy. On the other hand, hysteresis seems to prevent reforms, especially in countries
where the introduction of pension promises was achieved by social struggle. In the case of
Luxembourg, the legal retirement age was introduced in 1925 for men and in 1931 for
women. The quite generous promises were to be measured against an average life
expectancy of 55 years only at that time! Steel and mining represented 1/3 of GDP, more in
terms of employment. Today the banker has displaced the miner, but the schemes are the
same.
However, the institutions that run the pension schemes as well as the social dialogue
continue to be dominated on the employer's side as well as on the employee side by heavy
industry. Today, the latter represents less than 7% of GDP, and even less in terms of
employment. Much of the restructuring of the economy from industry to services was done in
a consensual way by early retirement schemes, or other measures at the expense of pension
schemes. The success of this social change management with generous promises in the
past might now be at the origin of resistance to measures aimed at curbing benefits today in
order to live-up to longer life expectancy tomorrow.
4) Another sociological barrier appear to be the numerous special regimes in many countries
run by separate administrative structures. The defence of sectoral privileges, often intricate
and deeply-rooted in our history, complicates the social dialogue necessary to address
solutions commensurate to the needs of our societies in the long run.
The first advantage of streamlining regimes is savings in administrative costs, as many of
these institutionalised regimes duplicate work. Since these administrative structures are the
official dialogue partners, they have a vested interest in resisting administrative efficiency,
even if the benefits of their regime would remain untouched.
Italy started its pension reform with administrative unification back in the 90's, while ensuing
step-by-step harmonization of the benefits system is still on the way. For example, only this
month the retirement age for Senate staff is to be lifted from 50 to 53 years.
France is also about to streamline its "special" regimes. In Luxembourg administrative
unification is about to be implemented as a first step.
5) This brings me to the largest impediment to reforms: timing. Pension reform inherently
means short-term pain for long-term gains. This does not square well with the electoral cycle.
Therefore methods already considered were:
- big reforms at the beginning of a legislature,
- small steps over the whole legislature,
- reforms agreed to be enacted only in subsequent legislatures,
- reforms on a trial base,
- opt ins with sweeteners,
- reforms by stealth etc....
There seems to be no miracle remedy. At the opposite end even parties which explicitly
campaigned on a "no need to reform" platform or pensioners' parties have also not
succeeded. Today the situation in pension reform can be compared to the situation in fiscal
reforms prior to the advent of the euro: The first reaction is to argue that your country is a
special case, that the rules do not fit it and to list excuses. The second reaction is to buy time
by taking one-off or temporary measures or window dressing.
Only in the third wave do we face the inevitable structural reform.
II. Excuses
What are the excuses as regards pension reform?
1) Demographic pressure is delayed
The peak in the level of public spending will occur already by 2030 in Austria and Finland.
Both countries have enacted reforms: Austria in such a way that it is the only EU country with
an expected decrease of spending on the pension burden, Finland by accumulating
reserves.
At the other extreme you find countries with peaks in 2050 only: Germany, Czech Republic,
Cyprus, Hungary, Ireland, Portugal, Luxembourg. Greek data are missing. Except for
Germany these are the countries that you find in the list of problem countries where reform is
lagging. Even the consciousness of a need for reform seems to have eluded some of these
countries.
Inside the EU 4 countries (Greece did not provide data) foresee that average pension
benefits will increase relative to wages: Cyprus, Ireland, Hungary, and Luxembourg. A quick
comparison with present inflation rates or unit labour costs shows that mostly the same
countries are already today at the top of the league for future competitiveness problems in a
monetary union.
2) Or is it that these countries which also have some of the highest growth figures feel unable
to communicate a decrease in benefits in such circumstances.
In the case of Cyprus, Ireland and Luxembourg the main motor of fast growth is employment
more than labour productivity. Is today's growth the scourge of tomorrow if it is not put to
good use?
For Luxembourg growth is due to cross-border workers, who today represent more than one
third of the labour force, foreign workers another third, the remaining third of locals being
increasingly occupied in the public or protected sector. Younger than average migrants and
cross-border workers act like a doping shot on economic growth and public sector finance.
Cross-border commuters alone account for 30% of social contributions and receive 18% of
old age and health care. This is equivalent to our 2% of GDP social security surplus, which is
used as an argument against adjustment. Some years ago, a significant part of this surplus
was even used for increasing the generosity of pension promises.
In fact these temporary present surpluses are insufficient to face the financing requirements
of pension promises over the long run, due to the longevity risk and to the generosity of
average pensions.
The BCL has calculated that our pension promise is equivalent to a Government bond with
an 8% coupon for representative individuals. In order to stabilize public sector expenditure
we would need the economy to grow in excess of 5.2% a year which requires more than 1
million cross-border workers for a population of 0.5 million. We could alternatively see a
doubling of contribution rates stifling growth or incur liabilities of 50% of GDP by 2050 and
more than 150% of GDP by 2085.
With a growth rate only fuelled by labour productivity according to long term trend, the deficit
of pension reserves would reach 100% of GDP by 2050 and even about 300% of GDP by the
end of our projection horizon (2085).
We suggested strengthening the revenue side of the actuarial imbalance by increasing the
property incomes of the private sector pension regime through better management of the
reserves (which is being implemented in the aftermath of a law adopted in May 2004 but with
a rather conservative strategy) and through increasing reserves to reach a fully funded
system according to the Modigliani/Muralidhar reform proposal. The latter proposal would
request a prefunding effort to step up present reserves to the needed present value of future
outlay. The trade-off between the speed of adjustment and intergenerational fairness
inherent in this proposal seems however to crash into a "political wall".
3) Reform seems all the more difficult in the context of relatively balanced public finances
and an exceptionally low debt rate of 7% in the Luxembourg case. Already now 1/3 of
pension contributions, which are equal to 24% of gross contributory incomes, are paid from
the general budget.
The buoyant growth rates - mainly from financial services - over the last decade helped
finance the adjustment from an industrial society to a service-oriented economy. These
growth rates masked above all high structural public expenditure, since the latter are
matched by equivalent, but to a large extent cyclical or temporary, revenues. However this
situation leaves a small and relatively undiversified open economy vulnerable to idiosyncratic
shocks. The dominant financial sector might mature and yield lower growth with an end to
the snowballing influx of cross-border workers. Luxembourg would then hit the so-called
"pension wall" in the absence of far-reaching reforms.
The volatility of public revenue is already now twice that of larger, more diversified
economies such as Germany of France. The illusion of the balanced public budget has to be
seen against the background of the depletion of budget reserves and even the occurrence of
deficits during the last economic turn-down. The low debt level would only bring temporary
relief, but acts as an encouragement to delay action.
The currently favourable situation of the pension regime seems to encourage complacency
rather than to be seen as a window of opportunity to set aside large assets. This is
unfortunate, because the corresponding property incomes would offset the rising costs of
generous pension benefits, at least if pension assets were equal to about 150-200% of GDP.
If the actuarial neutrality of pension promises, unsettled by longevity risk, cannot be mitigated
by action on the asset side, like accumulating reserves and managing them more
professionally or snow-balling influxes of young foreign workers to prevent rising
contributions to threaten competitivity, then one must also start to look at corrections on the
liability side.
Let me just add that expanding the contributive base with migration or commuters also has a
cost in terms of expense in public goods in order to stay attractive and to provide additional
transportation and housing facilities.
III. The scoreboard of benefits reform
According to the EU Commission 70% of the pressure on public spending covered by
demographic developments is projected to be offset by action on factors such as the
employment rate, the eligibility rate and the relative benefit level of pensions. In the new
member states of the Union this percentage is supposed to reach 100%. Generally speaking
public pension expenditure projections are most sensitive to assumptions of life expectancy,
especially in defined benefit schemes.
Higher or lower labour productivity assumptions affect pension spending through their link to
wage increases. If pensions are linked to wages the productivity and concomitant wage and
pension increase cannot of course relieve pension spending.
Interest rates only matter in case of funded or partially funded schemes.
Employment rates also matter less in most countries, since they tend to affect both the
contribution and the benefit side as well as the level of GDP. However in the case of a
defined benefit system, the increase of the eligibility age through longer working time and
less generous early retirement helps considerably in re-establishing an actuarial neutrality.
1) Life expectancy: Links between earnings and benefits
Systemic reforms to meet demographic pressure that adjust benefits or the pension age to
increasing life expectancy have been proposed or implemented in around half of OECD
countries. Defined contribution schemes funded or with notional accounts exist in Hungary,
Poland, Slovakia, Italy, Sweden; a points system exists in Germany; financial sustainability
adjustments were introduced in Austria, Finland, Portugal, Denmark and France.
Some countries introduced private or partly private DC schemes as a substitute for part of
the public earnings-related scheme. However there is still a transfer of resources between
generations from workers to retirees and the overall financial effect remains uncertain. Social
effects on lower earners remain untested since financial sustainability adjustments, due to
increases in average life expectancy, might hit lower earners disproportionally.
Since much of the pressure on pension costs is yet to come, some countries have resorted
to measures like broadening the contribution base (by increasing ceilings or contributions or
by financing some costs from general revenue). Increasing numbers of cross border workers
would also fall in this category of temporary short-term or self-defeating measures with a high
long term cost for the economy. The EPC found that only 4 smaller euro member states
(Cyprus, Ireland, Luxembourg and Malta) are expecting considerably increased employment
by 2050 as shown in the chart on slide 10.
2) Benefits adjustment
Adjustment towards financial sustainability or actuarial neutrality is mostly done through
changes in the statutory retirement age and less generous indexation to price or real wage
developments or valorisation.
a) take-up ratio
Most OECD countries now have a standard retirement age of 65. Denmark, Germany and
the United Kingdom are in the process of legislating increases. Retirement ages for men and
women are being equalized.
In most countries efforts tend to close the gap between the legal retirement age and the
effective retirement age in order to re-establish normal careers from the contributive side;
expenses not directly related to old-age pensions such as disability benefits ought not to
distort the actuarial balance. Fictive contribution periods or credits for missing contributions
are being curtailed or financed through social policies. One of the most damaging economic
theories in Europe has been the idea of distributing a finite amount of employment through
early retirement. Company and sector related economic restructuring was thus socialized at
the expense of the long-term equilibrium of pension schemes.
To fight young age unemployment with early retirement incentives in fact only alleviated the
employer's labour cost with subsidies from the pension schemes. Such attempts can be
seen, above all but not only, in monolithic smaller economies. Today penalties for early
retirement or increases in the number of years of contributions required to receive a full
pension have been introduced or increased in many countries. Other countries have
introduced or increased the increments or bonuses to late retirement. At some point in stage,
countries had a general interdiction for retirees to work or earn a salary beyond a minimum
amount!
In Finland, older workers are given higher accrual rates. Austria, France, Germany and
Portugal increased the benefit reductions for early retirement and increments for late
retirement. Large decreases in the take up ratio of pensions are furthermore projected in
Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Italy and Slovenia. In Luxembourg, pensions are
increased beyond two thresholds related to age and the length of the career, respectively.
Abolishing credited fictive contributions is not only improving financial sustainability but also
equity between workers.
b) calculated benefits
At one extreme in Luxembourg non-funded public sector pensions are still linked for elder
public employees to last day salary and many final promotions are made for a couple of
months only in order to increase pension entitlements. Since 1999 reform aligned this
scheme to reforms in 17 out of 22 OECD countries which now use lifetime earnings or a
close proxy of them to calculate benefits rather than a few years of final or last earnings.
These reforms usually carry no costs from a social point of view since low-skilled workers
typically have flatter real age earning profiles, as do women.
Furthermore progressive annuities are also increasingly being built in to discourage empty
career periods. Unemployment or caring benefits for example can also be subject to social
security contributions.
c) valorisation of past earnings
In all earnings-related public pension schemes past contributions or earnings are rescaled to
adjust to changes in living standards between the time pension rights accrued and the time
they are claimed. This valorisation of past earnings is mostly done in line with economy-wide
wage growth or with labour productivity increase.
France now rescales according to price growth only. Such an approach would considerably
decrease the implicit liabilities of the pension system in Luxembourg. Finland, Portugal and
Poland rescale according to a mix of wage and price growth with evolving benefits.
d) indexation of pensions
Price indexation protects purchasing power; wage indexation protects living standards. Is a
pensioner entitled to benefit from productivity gains in which he did not participate?
The traditional life cycle consumption pattern assumes that old age people consume less or
differently by increasing health care consumption. Since health care is largely socialized or
subsidized, productivity increases should benefit more wage income than pension income.
This is all the more so as the labour force diminishes and the dependency ratio increases.
In response one can argue that the increase in life expectancy also influences the
consumption behaviour of old age. This is already reflected in private banking wealth
management profiles.
Looking at the number of countries that have moved away from indexation of pensions to
future wages the answer seems to be that political and financial sustainability do not seem to
be mutually exclusive. But only piecemeal moves are observed in this area.
Some adjust to a mix of wage growth and price inflation and change the weighting. In Italy,
higher pensions are increased by less than price inflation. Portugal also gives larger
increases to smaller pensions. Austria introduced a cap on price inflation adjustment. In
Belgium price indexation is linked to a trimmed down index excluding volatile elements such
as oil products, alcohol or tobacco. In Luxembourg, we do not only fully index wages but also
pensions. We share this situation with Slovenia.
Conclusion
A year ago, at a conference on structural reforms at the Central Bank of Luxembourg,
Governor Garganas said that "Addressing the challenges for Greece's fiscal position and
international competitiveness will require, first and foremost, sustained further progress
towards fiscal consolidation, including measures to put the public pension system on a sound
basis." These words have to be seen in the light of the EPC report that shows for Greece a
below EU average evolving labour productivity rate and one of the strongest declines in
labour supply.
There is a clear trend towards a reduced pension promise, as shown as a consequence of
pension reform in 16 OECD countries. Six of the 10 countries with the highest expenditure on
pensions in the 1990s took action including Finland. 4 saw little or no change over that period
according to the OECD. They are Greece, Luxembourg, Belgium and Spain. Of course
pension reforms have profound social and distributional implications. Old age poverty is not
compatible with the objectives of the European Union. But is not the art of governance long
term planning under short-term pressures?
I therefore conclude with 2 observations from an investment bank report:
One to show how we consistently misjudged life expectancy is the UK. This country example
is probably also true in a continental perspective.
The final synthetic view is the new retirement landscape to which we have to adjust
according to the research team of a major investment bank: "Retirement, in its current form,
will soon be a thing of the past as demographic, financial and lifestyle factors lay siege to the
traditional model. People are living longer than ever before, but not necessarily working
longer, which has led to a surge in the number of people collecting pension benefits. State
pension plans are under growing pressure to reform and will likely resort to some
combination of reduced benefits or increased taxes to bring the programs into fiscal balance.
The same forces affecting public pension provision are also taking a toll on corporate
pension plans. Meanwhile, medical and healthcare spending is rising, putting government
finances under additional strain." (Robin Miranda and Kurt E. Reiman)
Bibliography
- The impact of ageing on public expenditure: projections for the EU25 Member
States on pensions, health care, long-term care, education and unemployment
transfers (2004-2050): Report prepared by the Economic Policy Committee and the
European Commission (DG ECFIN)
- Pensions at a Glance - Public policies across OECD countries: OECD 2007
- Annual Report 2006: Banque centrale du Luxembourg
- The transition from PAYG to funding: Application to the Luxembourg private sector
pension system: Working paper n° 23 July 2006 by Muriel Bouchet - Banque
centrale du Luxembourg
- Essentials 2008: UBS - Transition to Retirement by Robin Miranda and Kurt E.
Reiman
- Franco Modigliani and Arun S. Muralidhar, Rethinking Pension Reform, Cambridge
University Press, 2004.