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Lessons of the European Debt Crisis for China: A Law and Economics Perspective
From 2009, some European countries like Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spanish (PIGS), were fallen in sovereign debt crisis. It was found that PIGS rely heavily on a public pension system; at the same time they have little private pensions, so they may be more likely to face a pension payments crisis, sovereign debt crisis, and the plight of civil unrest. To the contrary, some countries like the Netherlands, Australia, Switzerland and the UK (NASU) were in a healthy economic situation where the financial system, the fiscal system, and the pension systems were more stable. China is currently facing the enormous pressure of the one-child policy curing and aging peak arriving. It should hence learn from the experience of the NASU, and try to avoid the situation of the PIGS. The possible pension development proposal of China is based on the following ideas: encouraging the first pillar’s individual account pension to invest in the capital market to ensure the preservation of their value; making the second pillar’s enterprise annuity and occupational pension becoming mandatory or quasi-mandatory. This paper argues that both public and private pillars could make China’s pension system more equal and sustainable.