Estimados Académicos y Académicas FEN,

Les extendemos la invitación al seminario que organiza el Departamento de Economía, en el que se presentará el trabajo titulado "Inequality in Pension Contribution Gaps".

Expone: Salvador Valdés, Senior Fellow, Escuela de Negocios UAI.

Co-autor: Samuel Leyton

Abstract: Contributory pensions are reduced by gaps in contribution histories. This paper quantifies gaps for each decile of earnings of labor market participants, controlling for labor market attachment and individual fixed effects, using a 14-year panel from Chile. We find substantial inequality: residual gaps are largest for the lowest earners, then fall with earnings up to a threshold in the 4th decile. For higher earnings, gaps remain constant. Thus, low earners bear proportionately larger cuts to replacement rates in old age. We also show gap inequality cannot be detected from data on beneficiaries if access to pensions requires 10 or 15 years of contribution, as in the U.S.A. and Spain. We review explanations of why legal exemptions from contribution and weak enforcement are widespread and persistent. The view that “gaps are good” for low earners has restricted budgets for enforcement and expanded exemptions. The opposite view, namely that gaps are bad for low earners, is backed by some evidence.

El formato será presencial y el seminario se desarrollará en la Sala P-204.

Saludos cordiales,

Dirección de Investigación