TY  - JOUR
AU  - Cogan,John F.
AU  - Mitchell,Olivia S.
TI  - The Role of Economic Policy in Social Security Reform: Perspectives from the President's Commission
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9166
PY  - 2002
Y2  - September 2002
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9166
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9166.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
John Cogan
Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Stanford, CA   94305
Tel: NA
E-Mail: cogan@stanford.edu

Olivia S. Mitchell
University of Pennsylvania
Wharton School
3620 Locust Walk, St 3000 SH-DH
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6302
Tel: 215-898-0424
Fax: 215/898-0310
E-Mail: mitchelo@wharton.upenn.edu
AB  - Recently we were asked to serve on the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security (CSSS) along with 14 other members drawn equally from both major political parties. The Commission's charge was to provide recommendations to modernize the Social Security system, restore its fiscal soundness, and develop a workable system of Personal Retirement Accounts. This paper explains how the Commission arrived at some of its recommendations and the role that economics played in contributing to these recommendations. We describe the key institutional constraints confronting efforts to reform Social Security and how these constraints influenced Commission decisions. We also illustrate how economics research influenced the Commission's analysis of how to structure personal accounts, ways to enhance traditional Social Security program finances, and means of measuring the extent of financial progress achieved through reform.
ER  -