Balancing the pension system: which reforms for which objectives?

Summary This thesis proposes evaluations of recent reforms of the French pension system, using two distinct and complementary approaches: ex post evaluation by microeconometrics and ex ante evaluation by microsimulation. An introductory chapter provides a review of the literature on the effect of the pension system on activity behavior. Next, we use the reforms of the mandatory retirement scheme in the 2000s to identify an effect of labor demand on labor market withdrawal behavior. We then assess the effect of the increase in the minimum retirement age introduced by the 2003 reform. We study the effects of the reform on employment after the age of 60, but also the potential substitution effects towards other public schemes, in particular unemployment insurance.The second part of this thesis, devoted to the evaluation by microsimulation, opens with a presentation of the approach applied to retirement and its use in French models. First, we propose an evaluation of the increase in the duration of insurance provided for by the 2003 reform. The principle of maintaining a constant ratio between the duration of working life and the duration of retirement is questioned, and then compared with the changes projected in simulation using the INSEE'sDestinie model. Finally, we use the Institute of Public Policy's Pensipp model to simulate new reform options that would reduce the pension system's dependence on growth and the uncertainty about its financial balance.