Israel’s Shift to Private Social Security

What’s the best economic news of the past 40 years?

• Was it Reaganomics, which restored America’s economic vitality?
• Was it the collapse of the Soviet Empire, which freed many nations from communist tyranny and allowed at least some of them to successfully shift to markets?
• Was it partial economic liberalization in China, which lifted hundreds of millions of people out of severe poverty?

Those are all good choices, but let’s not overlook Israel.

This chart from Economic Freedom of the World shows that economic freedom dramatically expanded in that nation between 1980 and 2000 (and has since gradually risen).

Israel’s shift away from the voluntary socialism of the kibbutz has paid big dividends. The nation has become far more prosperous.

I’ve already written how Israel benefited from supply-side reduction in tax rates.

Today, let’s learn about the country’s shift to private social security.

To find out what happened, let’s look at some excerpts from an article in Economics and Business Review. Authored by Moshe Manor and Joanna Ratajczak, it starts by observing there’s been a global shift to private social security systems.

The first paradigmatic shift towards a private pension system was performed in Chile in 1981 and had its followers in Latin America… The Chilean example inspired the World Bank to propose that such a shift should become a key element of the pension reform for postsocialist countries… The shift towards private pension schemes was assumed to meet demographic challenges and the secondary goals of the pension system, especially economic growth accomplished thanks to an acceleration of domestic savings.

This has been a very positive development for the countries that made the shift, by the way.

But let’s focus specifically on the reform in Israel. Here’s some of what the authors wrote.

Israel…abandoned a controlled economy and introduced the market economy only in the last three decades. …In the last 30 years Israel has faced many reforms of the pension system as part of broader economic reforms. …the stabilization programme allowed the Ministry of Finance (MOF) to start a series of structural changes, including pension reforms… The reasons for the reforms were not strictly economic but they also were based on neoliberal economic beliefs, political motives and international relations. …The USA feared Israel’s possible economic collapse and requested that the Israelis execute reforms designed according to Milton Friedman’s neoliberal principles in order to gain American economic support.

For what it’s worth, I’m in favor of “neoliberalism” when it’s defined as pro-market (which seems to be the case in many parts of the world).

Here’s a description of how the reform moved the country from a defined benefit model (often unfunded) to a funded defined contribution model.

The pension reforms were intended to stabilize the system and prepare it for the future difficulties such as ageing and poverty relief; they were also meant to develop the capital market and reduce the burden on the state budget. The main steps included introduction of the mandatory private pension pillar.. The reforms also eliminated PAYG for new joiners and turned the system from actuarially imbalanced, DB…to actuarially balanced, DC, privately managed and invested in capital markets. …The comparison of the reforms in Israel and those in Chile…shows a large similarity: shutting down the PAYG system to new joiners; a shift to funds which are privately managed, DC type, invested in capital markets system; a mandatory pension in the second pillar; development of the local capital markets using the pension accumulation; reduction of government involvement in pensions and of the burden on the state budget.. The main differences encompass low contribution rates in Chile that led to low net replacement rates, while in Israel the contribution rates and net replacement rates are high.

Oddly, the article never states how much of a worker’s paycheck goes to mandatory savings (i.e., the contribution rate).

So here’s a blurb from a recent report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Since January 2008, mandatory contributions have applied to earnings up to the national average wage for all employees… Initially the rates were modest with a total contribution of 2.5% but increased to 15% (5% from employees and 10% from employers) by 2013. In 2014 the contribution rate increased further to 17.5% (5.5% from employees and 12% from employers)and since January 2018 increased to 18.5% (6% from employees and 12.5% from employers). Six percentage points out of the employers’ contribution provides severance insurance which, if utilised, diminishes the pension.

That is a significantly higher level of mandated private savings when compared to countries such as Australia and Chile.

Sadly, the United States isn’t part of that conversation since we’re still stuck with our actuarially bankrupt Social Security scheme.

P.S. While researching this column, I read the OECD’s recent Survey about Israel’s economy. The bureaucrats in Paris groused that there’s a lot of inequality and poverty in that country.

This set of data perfectly illustrates why the OECD is an untrustworthy and biased bureaucracy.

As noted by my Eighth Theorem of Government, it should focus on economic growth to reduce poverty rather than fixating on whether some people are getting richer faster than others are getting richer.

Speaking of which, the supposed poverty data doesn’t actually measure poverty. Instead, “relative poverty” is simply the share of people are below “50% of median household income,” which the OECD then dishonestly characterizes as a measure of poverty (this is how the OECD came up with the absurd claim that there’s more poverty in the United States than in comparatively poor countries such as Turkey and Portugal).

Ironically, the same OECD report admits that Israel is out-performing other developed nations.

Israel is growing faster, as you can see, while also reducing government debt at a time when it’s going up in other countries (I’m sure coronavirus has since wreaked havoc with the Israeli economy, but that’s also true for other OECD countries).

Yet the OECD can’t resist grousing about inequality and lying about poverty.

P.P.S. Shifting back to social security reform, here are some of the other nations (beside Israel, Chile, and Australia) that now benefit from private savings instead of empty political promises: Denmark, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Faroe Islands, and Sweden.

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Israel, the Laffer Curve, and Market-Based Reform

Since I’m a big fan of the Laffer Curve, I’m always interested in real-world examples showing good results when governments reduce marginal tax rates on productive activity.

Heck, I’m equally interested in real-world results when governments do the wrong thing and increase tax burdens on work, saving, investment, and entrepreneurship (and, sadly, these examples are more common).

My goal, to be sure, isn’t to maximize revenue for politicians. Instead, I prefer the growth-maximizing point on the Laffer Curve.

In any event, my modest hope is that politicians will learn that higher tax rates lead to less taxable income. Whether taxable income falls by a lot or a little obviously depends on the specific circumstance. But in either case, I want policy makers to understand that there are negative economic effects.

Writing for Forbes, Jeremy Scott of Tax Notes analyzes the supply-side policies of Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu…argued that the Laffer curve worked, and that his 2003 tax cuts had transformed Israel into a market economy and an engine of growth. …He pushed through controversial reforms… The top individual tax rate was cut from 64 percent to 44 percent, while corporate taxes were slashed from 36 percent to 18 percent. …Netanyahu credits these reforms for making Israel’s high-tech boom of the last few years possible. …tax receipts did rise after Netanyahu’s tax cuts. In fact, they were sharply higher in 2007 than in 2003, before falling for several years because of the global recession. …His tax cuts did pay for themselves. And he has transformed Israel into more of a market economy…In fact, the prime minister recently announced plans for more cuts to taxes, this time to the VAT and corporate levies.

Pretty impressive.

Though I have to say that rising revenues doesn’t necessarily mean that the tax cuts were completely self-financing. To answer that question, you have to know what would have happened in the absence of the tax cut. And since that information never will be available, all we can do is speculate.

That being said, I have no doubt there was a strong Laffer Curve response in Israel. Simply stated, dropping the top tax rate on personal income by 20 percentage points creates a much more conducive environment for investment and entrepreneurship.

And cutting the corporate tax rate in half is also a sure-fire recipe for improved investment and job creation.

I’m also impressed that there’s been some progress on the spending side of the fiscal ledger.

Netanyahu explained that the public sector had become a fat man resting on a thin man’s back. If Israel were to be successful, it would have to reverse the roles. The private sector would need to become the fat man, something that would be possible only with tax cuts and a trimming of public spending. …Government spending was capped for three years.

The article doesn’t specify the years during which spending was capped, but the IMF data shows a de facto spending freeze between 2002 and 2005. And the same data, along with OECD data, shows that the burden of government spending has dropped by about 10 percentage points of GDP since that period of spending restraint early last decade.

Here’s the big picture from the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World. As you can see from the data on Israel, the nation moved dramatically in the right direction after 1980. And there’s also been an upward bump in recent years.

Since I’m not an expert on Israeli economic policy, I don’t know the degree to which Netanyahu deserves a lot of credit or a little credit, but it’s good to see a country actually moving in the right direction.

Let’s close by touching on two other points. First, there was one passage in the Forbes column that rubbed me the wrong way. Mr. Scott claimed that Netanyahu’s tax cuts worked and Reagan’s didn’t.

Netanyahu might have succeeded where President Reagan failed.

I think this is completely wrong. While it’s possible that the tax cuts in Israel has a bigger Laffer-Curve effect than the tax cuts in the United States, the IRS data clearly shows that Reagan’s lower tax rates led to more revenue from the rich.

Second, the U.S. phased out economic aid to Israel last decade. I suspect that step helped encourage better economic policy since Israeli policy makers knew that American taxpayers no longer would subsidize statism. Maybe, just maybe, there’s a lesson there for other nations?

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Should American Taxpayers Subsidize Israel’s Defense?

I rarely delve into foreign policy and defense issues. And when I do, such as my post about the conflict in Ukraine, it’s usually because it gives me an opportunity to draw attention to a topic that is in my bailiwick (in the case of Ukraine, it gave me an excuse to write about federalism).

With this caveat in mind, let’s turn our attention to the Middle East. Unless you’re a hermit living in a remote cave, you presumably know that Israel is locked in another fight with Hamas.

I’ve previously explained that I’m very sympathetic to the notion that Israel has a right to defend itself.

But supporting Israel’s right to self defense doesn’t mean I should foot the bill. Yet that’s what’s happening. According to Wikipedia, Washington sends about $3 billion per year to subsidize Israel’s military.

And now that amount will be even larger because Congress just approved another $225 million to help finance Israel’s missle-defense system.

Congress approved a $225 million package to replenish Israel’s missile defenses with its last order of business before a five-week recess… The House’s 395-8 vote in favor late Friday followed Senate adoption of the legislation by voice vote earlier in the day. The money is directed toward restocking Israel’s Iron Dome, which has been credited with shooting down dozens of incoming rockets fired by Palestinian militants over 3½ weeks of war. …Iron Dome has enjoyed strong U.S. technological and financial support. Throughout its history, the U.S. has provided more than $700 million to help Israel cover costs for batteries, interceptors, production costs and maintenance, the Congressional Research Service said. The total already appeared set to climb above $1 billion after Senate appropriators doubled the Obama administration’s request for Iron Dome funding for fiscal 2015. Now it seems likely to rise even further.

But this doesn’t mean everyone is happy about all this spending.

Some libertarian-leaning fiscal conservatives opposed the added subsidies, or at least wanted Congress to come up with offsetting cuts.

Despite almost universal support for Israel in Congress, the Iron Dome money appeared in doubt only a day ago as Senate efforts stalled after an effort by Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma to find cuts elsewhere in the budget to pay for the aid.  …Voting against the measure in the House were…Republicans Justin Amash of Michigan, Walter Jones of North Carolina, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Mark Sanford of South Carolina.

For what it’s worth, I applaud those four House Republicans.

I’m motivated in part by a desire to limit the burden of government spending in America, but I also think that Israel easily could afford more military outlays if it pared back its overly generous welfare state.

If you look at the IMF data, government spending consumes about 43.8 percent of Israel’s economic output. And according to the CIA Factbook, Israel’s military budget amounts to about 5.7 percent of GDP.

I’m not a math genius, but that certainly suggests to me that Israel’s government is diverting about 38 percent of economic output for non-military spending.

If national defense is important and worthwhile (and it is), then Israel should prioritize and reduce domestic outlays.

Heck, that’s what Roosevelt did during World War II and what Truman did during the Korean War. If you don’t believe me, look at lines 31-34 of this OMB spreadsheet.

By the way, some people accuse these GOPers of being anti-Israel, but I think that charge is grossly unfair. I’m not personally close to any of the Republicans who voted against the Iron Dome funding, but I’ve met and talked to all of them and I’ve followed their careers. Suffice to say that I’ve never heard even the slightest hint that any of them harbor any anti-Israel or anti-Jewish sentiments.

Indeed, here’s some of what Justin Amash wrote back in 2012.

Israel is our closest friend in a very troubled region. Our national defense benefits from Israel’s ability to defend itself and to serve as a check against neighboring authoritarian regimes and extremists. Assisting with training and the development of Israel’s military capacity allows the U.S. to take a less interventionist role in the region. I am hopeful that American troops soon can leave the region and Israel and its neighbors can live in peace without U.S. aid or involvement.

The last sentence is a pretty good description of libertarian foreign policy: Be prepared to defend ourselves, but don’t look for trouble outside our borders.

P.S. The government of Israel pays for people who do nothing but pray. Which means that my tax dollars are picking up part of the tab. Prayer is presumably a good thing. Just don’t ask me to pay for it.

P.P.S. While Israel’s government does dumb things, the governments opposing Israel sometime engage in truly evil acts.

P.P.P.S. If you want to learn more about the libertarian approach to foreign policy, my Cato colleagues are the real experts. I also call your attention to these thoughts from Mark Steyn, George Will, and Steve Chapman.

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