Population Council Research that makes a difference

Population Association of America Annual Meeting
31 March–2 April 2011

Abstract

"Short-run impacts of the 2008 reform in the Chilean privatized pension system"
Maria C. Calderon, Olivia S. Mitchell, Javiera Vasquez, and David Bravo Urrutia

This study evaluates the immediate impact of the 2008 pension reform in Chile and focuses on the "Basic Solidarity Pension" (PBS) that targets poor households with at least one member age 65 or older (17.4% of the population). Results show: (1) targeted households are less well-informed about the PBS, but they are more likely to report receiving this benefit (around 24% of their mean household annual income); (2) little evidence of crowding out private transfers owing to higher public transfers; (3) slightly higher expenditures on consumption, including health care, more leisure hours, and improved self-reported health, but only the reduction in hours worked per week (1.6 hours) is a fairly large effect, and none of these is statistically significant. These "small" effects raise questions about what happened to the increased income from the PBS. There are reasons to expect adjustments over time in implementation of reforms and in private responses.

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