November 2017

Framing the Future: Using Investment and Assurance Frames to Encourage Retirement Information Search

By Wiebke Eberhardt, Elisabeth Brüggen (Maastricht University), Thomas Post (Netspar), Chantal Hoet (Aegon) Many pension plan participants are inactive. They do not look up information on their retirement income and discover pension gaps too late to take action. We analyze how pension communication framing interventions motivate participants to acquire retirement income information. First, we show that classical loss frames (vs. gain) are an effective intervention, but also evoke negative perceptions and evaluations. Second, we develop new frames (assurance, investment) tapping...

October 2017

Longevity Risk and Capital Markets: The 2015-16 Update

By David P. Blake (The Pensions Institute), Nicole El Karoui (Ecole Polytechnique), Richard D. MacMinn (National Chengchi University) & Stéphane Loisel (University of Lyon) This Special Issue of Insurance: Mathematics and Economics contains 16 contributions to the academic literature all dealing with longevity risk and capital markets. Draft versions of the papers were presented at Longevity 11: The Eleventh International Longevity Risk and Capital Markets Solutions Conference that was held in Lyon, France on 8-9 September 2015. It was hosted...

Recreating Sustainable Retirement: Resilience, Solvency, and Tail Risk (Pension Research Council Series)

by Pension Reseach Council (Author), Olivia S. Mitchell (Editor), Raimond Maurer (Editor), P.Brett Hammond (Editor) The financial crisis and the ensuing Great Recession alerted those seeking to protect old-age security, about the extreme risks confronting the financial and political institutions comprising our retirement system. The workforce of today and tomorrow must count on longer lives and deferred retirement, while at the same time it is taking on increased responsibility for managing retirement risk. This volume explores new ways to think about,...

Fiscal Incidence in Belarus: A Commitment to Equity Analysis

By Kateryna Bornukova (BEROC), Gleb Shymanovich (IPM Research Center), Alexander Chubrik (CASE - Center for Social and Economic Research; IPM Research Center) The paper employs the Commitment to Equity framework to present a first attempt at a comprehensive fiscal incidence analysis for Belarus, encompassing the revenue and expenditures components of the fiscal system, including direct and indirect taxes, as well as direct, indirect, and in-kind transfers. The analysis reveals that fiscal policies in Belarus effectively redistribute income from the top...

Saving the Next Billion from Old Age Poverty. Global Lessons for Local Action

This Book Project is the first of a series of initiatives by pinBox to jumpstart a global dialogue and collaborative action on pension inclusion across Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Book presents the policy outlook, past efforts and planned interventions by several developing countries as well as thematic chapters on the key principles and issues in design and implementation of inclusive pension arrangements. This book was realeased on October 12 on the pinBox Digital Micro-Pension Inclusion Roundtable 2017 For more information...

pinBox Digital Micro-Pension Inclusion Roundtable 2017

On 12 October 2017, pinBox Solutions and the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University are co-hosting the first global policy roundtable on digital microPension inclusion. The roundtable co-sponsored by UNCDF, PFIP, CEM Benchmarking, Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion and microPension Foundation. The roundtable will be platform for the global launch of the new book titled Saving the Next Billion from Old Age Poverty: Global Lessons for Local Action. This book is co-edited by Parul Seth Khanna, William...

September 2017

Pension Schemes, Taxation and Stakeholder Wealth: The USS Rule Changes

By Emmanouil Platanakis (University of Bath) & Charles Sutcliffe (University of Reading) Although tax relief on pensions is a controversial area of government expenditure, this is the first study of the tax effects of a real world defined benefit pension scheme - the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS). First, we estimate the tax and national insurance contribution (NIC) effects of the rule changes in 2011 on the gross and net wealth of the sponsor, government, and 16 age cohorts of members,...

Borrowing on the Wrong Credit Card: Evidence from Mexico

By Alejandro Ponce (World Justice Project), Enrique Seira (Banco de México; ITAM) & Guillermo Zamarripa (FUNDEF, Mexico) We study how consumers allocate debt across credit cards they already hold using new data on credit card activity for a representative sample of consumers with two homogeneous cards in Mexico. We find that relative prices are a very weak predictor of the allocation of debt, purchases, and payments. On average, consumers pay 31 % above their minimum financing cost. Evidence on cross-card...

August 2017

The State of Public Pension Funding: Are Government Employee Plans Back on Track?

By Andrew G. Biggs (American Enterprise Institute) The public-sector pension industry is claiming a comeback from losses suffered during the Great Recession. But this recovery is greatly exaggerated: even years past the end of the recession, most pension sponsors are unable to their full annual contributions, and pensions are taking as much investment risk as ever. The first step to effective pension reforms is an honest, accurate view of the costs and risks that public plans impose on government budgets...