El ahorro previsional y su incidencia en la sostenibilidad del sistema de pensiones del Ecuador : variables que inciden en la sostenibilidad del sistema de pensiones, el caso del Ecuador para el periodo 1970-2023.

Abstract

This study employs annual time series data from 1970 to 2023 to identify the variables affecting the Sustainability of the Ecuadorian Pension System. The explanatory variables considered include: the Dependency Ratio, Net Migration, Total Population, Global Participation Rate, Underemployment and Unemployment Rates, Life Expectancy at Birth, Fertility Rate, and Gross Domestic Product. The variable used to measure the Sustainability of the System was Pension Savings, calculated as the difference between the revenues and expenditures of the Ecuadorian Pension System. First, the most probable moments of structural changes were considered, coinciding with significant events in the Ecuadorian economy, such as the year the country established the Official Dollarization System (2000) or radical government decisions regarding the pension system (2015). Using the Lumsdaine and Papell (1997) approach, the stationarity of each series was examined, and it was found that the null hypothesis of a unit root could be rejected for all variables. Additionally, due to the stationarity of the series, it was concluded that applying the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model was the best way to determine the relationships between the variables. In particular, the error correction version of the ARDL model was used to specify the shortand long-term determinants of pension savings in the presence of structural breaks. The results showed that, except for Gross Domestic Product, all variables have a cointegrated relationship; that is, pension savings were influenced by each of the indicators considered here.