earticle

영어

This paper examines, using two simple theoretical models, the general belief thatincrease in welfare by the provision of social safety net would decrease efficiency,growth, and labor supply. It is commonly believed that any government policy thattries to increase welfare will result in the decrease in economic growth. Furthermore,it is believed that increase in welfare gives incentives to workers to cut their workingtime, i.e., labor supply. However, microeconomic theory teaches that provision ofinsurance to reduce the uncertainty in income will increase efficiency of theeconomy. If so, provision of social safety net would work as an insurance and it willincrease efficiency of the economy, and might increase growth rate and laborsupply. This paper utilizes a growth model and a precautionary saving mode, bothcommonly adopted among main-stream economists, to examine whether the generalbelief holds in any circumstances or not. Two main conclusions are drawn from theanalyses of the models. First, in an overlapping generations growth model with investment in human capital, provision of social safety net could increase growth rateof an economy if the elasticity of intertemporal substitution is high, while low elasticityimplies decrease in the growth rate. The borderline is the unity of elasticity ofsubstitution. If it is greater than one, provision of social safety net increases growthrate of the economy, and vice versa. Second, in a simple two period model with uncertain income in the second period, if marginal utility function is concave, provisionof social safety net would increase labor supply, while convex marginal utility wouldresult in a decrease in the labor supply. In any case, social safety net works as aninsurance against uncertain future income, so there will be Pareto improvement inthe economy. The key point of this paper is that it gives counter-examples of thegeneral belief that a certain level of welfare in an economy could be achieved only through the sacrifice of efficiency and growth, and that increase in welfare will make economic agents reduce labor supply. In other words, this paper does notpresent any general theory about the relationship between welfare and growth or labor supply. On the contrary, it shows that the simple relationship between welfareand growth or labor supply, believed to be true among general public, is not aniron-clad truth, indicating that it is necessary that more thorough and wide-rangingresearch about the relationship should be conducted in the future.

한국어

본 논문은 간단한 이론적 모형 두 가지를 통하여 복지 특히 사회안전망 구축은 경제의효율성, 경제성장, 그리고 노동 공급을 감소시킨다는 일반적인 통념을 재검토하여 보았다. 주요한 결론은 복지가 반드시 경제성장을 저해하고 노동공급을 감소시키는 것이 아님을 반례(counter example)를 통하여 보일 수 있다는 것이다. 인적자본에 대한 투자가 포함된 중첩세대모형에서, 소비의 기간 간 대체탄력성(Elasticity Of Intertemporal Substitution)이 클경우 사후적으로 소득이 높은 계층에서 조세를 걷어 소득이 낮은 계층에 보조금을 지급하는 사회안전망 설계(Scheme)가 경제성장률을 높이지만 반면에 대체 탄력성이 작으면 그러한 설계는 성장률을 낮게 만든다. 그리고 예비적 저축 모형(Precautionary Savings Model)을 변형한 모형에서 한계효용 곡선이 오목한 구간에서 소비가 이루어질 경우 그 설계는 노동 공급을 증가시키지만, 소비가 한계효용 곡선이 볼록한 구간에서 이루어 질 경우 노동 공급을 감소시킨다. 이 논문을 통하여 저자가 성장과 복지가 같이 갈 수 있으니 복지를 과도하게 시행해야 된다는 것을 주장하는 것은 결코 아니며, 단지 성장과 복지 간의 관계가 그렇게 도식적으로 간단하지 않으므로 앞으로 좀 더 체계적이고 엄밀한 이론적 연구가 많이수행될 필요가 있음을 지적하고 있는 것이다.