A note on social security, human capital and growth

Abstract

In this paper we study the effect of an old-age public pension scheme, when growth is triggered by human capital accumulation. In Zhang (1995) and Kemnitz and Wigger (2000), it is shown that introducing an unfunded pension system in a Laissez-Faire economy will increase economic growth. The present paper follows Kemnitz and Wigger, but shows that a properly designed public funded system will also generate higher economic growth than a Laissez-Faire economy. Moreover, it is shown how capital intensity is affected by the funded pension scheme.