@techreport{NBERw7050,
 title = "Administrative Costs and Equilibrium Charges with Individual Accounts",
 author = "Peter Diamond",
 institution = "National Bureau of Economic Research",
 type = "Working Paper",
 series = "Working Paper Series",
 number = "7050",
 year = "1999",
 month = "March",
 URL = "http://www.nber.org/papers/w7050",
 abstract = {There are many individual account proposals. For government-organized accounts, the government arranges for both record-keeping and investment management.  For privately-organized accounts, individuals directly select private firms to do these tasks. The government spreads the costs of government-organized accounts among accounts, outside sources of revenue, employers and workers.  With privately-organized accounts, equilibrium prices reflect selling costs as well as administrative costs.  Thus, government-organized accounts are organized on a group basis while privately-organized accounts are organized on an individual basis. In financial and insurance markets generally, the group and individual markets function very differently and yield different pricing structures. The paper describes a low cost/low services government-organized plan and estimates that it might cost $40-50 per worker per year. The nature of equilibrium with privately-organized accounts is discussed, with the conclusion that the costs would be very high compared to the cost of government organization.},
}