What Do We Learn About Redistribution Effects of Pension Systems from Internationally Comparable Measures of Social Security Wealth?

We present novel estimates of Social Security Wealth (SSW) at the individual level based on the SHARE survey. Our estimates are based on a rigorous methodology taking into account country-specific legislations, the earnings history and the longevity prospects of individuals. The key advantage over existing estimates is that our measures of SSW is fully comparable across countries. This allows us to construct several indexes of the redistribution enacted by the pension systems in Europe. Moreover, simple correlations between SSW and alternative measures of private wealth are presented to provide descriptive evidence of the displacement effect of SSW on private wealth