We analyze what effects the past public pension reforms have had on household savings and consumption behaviors by generations. Pension reform affects household income at the same time by shifts in contribution. It also impacts expected future household income through benefit changes. According to the Life Cycle Hypothesis, when a public pension is reformed, a household changes consumption and savings plans over its life to maximize its utility with restriction on reformed lifetime income. The public pension reform in Japan has been modified in about every 5 years, and these reforms have had different effects on each generation. Using our life cycle model, we estimate changes in lifetime pension benefits, contribution balance and lifetime utility through reforms across generations. Two findings were noteworthy. First, if we could combine the change of the contribution with the change of the benefit, we can selectively adjust the balance of the contribution and the benefit of some generations. Second, because ad hoc reforms have political risk, they tend to inflict a loss on generations who don't have voting rights at the time.
