Aplicación de la economía del comportamiento para el desarrollo de un sistema de pensiones

Abstract

[spa] La economía del comportamiento estudia los efectos de la conducta humana en la toma de decisiones de los individuos. A partir de sus hallazgos, ofrece herramientas para corregir los sesgos cognitivos a los que se enfrentan los agentes, y que impiden un comportamiento racional. De este modo, es posible elaborar políticas públicas, basadas en estos conocimientos, orientadas, por ejemplo, a fomentar la creación de planes de pensión privados que corrijan el problema de sostenibilidad al que se enfrenta el sistema actual. La propuesta principal de este trabajo consiste en la implantación de un sistema de inscripción automática que destine una proporción del salario del trabajador a fondos de pensión privados.

[eng] Behavioral economics studies the effects of human behavior on the decision making of individuals. Its findings are mainly based on the bounds of rationality of economic agents. For these reasons, their decisions differ from the usual predictions of economic theory. In this way, behavioral economics offers a series of tools to correct the cognitive biases that agents face when they make economic decisions. The current pension system in Spain present a series of problems that question its sustainability. Public pension spending has gradually increased in recent years. Furthermore, it is expected that it will continue to increase as a result of population aging. A possible solution to this problem would be to complement the system with private capitalization plans, but the creation of such plans is not a common practice in Spain. Thanks to the insights of behavioral economics, it is possible to develop public policies aimed at promoting the creation of private pension plans. If the public administration carries out these actions, it might be possible to correct the sustainability problem of the current pension system in Spain. The main proposal of this essay is to implement an automatic enrollment system. This idea consists of assigning a proportion of the worker’s salary to a private pension fund. In order not to affect the purchasing power of the worker, it would start with a small proportion of wages that would be gradually increased in the future.