New figures on unfunded public pension entitlements across Europe: concept, results and applications

A major aim of the recent updates of National Accounting standards (SNA 2008 and ESA 2010) is to provide a more complete picture of households' wealth. In this course it will become mandatory for European countries to publish annual estimates of unfunded public pension entitlements (UPPE) from 2017 onwards. This study describes the methodological concepts behind this new figure of national accounts. After a review of past studies we provide a large cross-country comparison for 18 EU countries and discuss a number of possible applications for policy makers and researchers. This includes the measurement of changes in pension obligations due to 2nd pillar pension reforms observed recently in a number of Central and Eastern European countries. Also the use for estimating the offset between unfunded pension entitlements and savings rates (Feldstein in J Polit Econ 82:905-926, 1974) is discussed. Finally, we show the distribution of households' wealth across Europe including financial wealth, dwellings and UPPE. With respect to the pre-financial crisis year 2006, our data indicate that taking these three wealth categories into account many differences between countries with Beveridgean and Bismarckian pension systems as well as between western and central eastern European countries are eliminated.