DP6825 Investing for the Old Age: Pensions, Children and Savings

Author(s): Vincenzo Galasso , Roberta Gatti , Paola Profeta

Publication Date: May 2008

Keyword(s): fertility , financial markets , intergenerational transfers , PAYG pension systems

JEL(s): H55 , J13

Programme Areas: Public Policy

Link to this Page: www.cepr.org/pubs/dps/DP6825.asp.asp

In the last century most countries have experienced both an increase in pension spending and a decline in fertility. We argue that the interplay of pension generosity and development of capital markets is crucial to understand fertility decisions. Since children have traditionally represented for parents a form of retirement saving, particularly in economies with limited or non-existent capital markets, an exogenous increase of pension spending provides a saving technology alternative to children, thus relaxing financial (saving) constraints and reducing fertility. We build a simple two-period OLG model to show that an increase in pensions is associated with a larger decrease in fertility in countries in which individuals have less access to financial markets. Cross-country regression analysis supports our result: an interaction between various measures of pension generosity and a proxy for the development of financial markets consistently enters the regressions positively and significantly, suggesting that in economies with limited financial markets, children represent a (if not the only) way for parents to save for old age, and that increases in pensions amount effectively to relaxing these constraints.