September 2020

COVID-19 and pensions in Latin America

By Ernesto Brodersohn In the last 2020 edition of “G7 Pensions LT Investment Summit. Modern Asset Allocation, ESG & Inclusive Growth” I was invited to deliver some remarks on the current situation of Pension Systems in Latin America in the juncture with the health and economic crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic. This sparked a quick updated stocktaking over the latest responses that different jurisdictions have been applying to pension schemes throughout the region. Over the past couple of months pension systems...

June 2019

Ahorro para el Retiro: más que tsunami, un maratón. Comentarios al Anteproyecto de Políticas y Criterios en Materia de Comisiones. Elaboración de Diagnóstico.

Policy Note de Ernesto BrodersohnCEO y fundador de Pension Policy International En México, diversos especialistas en pensiones han adoptado el concepto Tsunami pensionario para referirse al problema del inadecuado financiamiento de las pensiones de una manera que sensibilice a los actores políticos y los obligue a actuar en consecuencia para reformar sustantivamente el actual Sistema de Ahorro para el Retiro. No obstante, valdría la pena aclarar que mientras el Tsunami es un desastre natural que ocurre y después regresa la situación a cierta normalidad posterior al evento, el...

August 2018

Annuity Puzzle: how products are designed matters

By Eduardo Rodríguez Montemayor PPI’s Editorial Board editorial@pensionpolicy.net Getting an annuity with our savings pot at the time of retirement is the only contract that guarantees periodic pension payments for life. Yet, few people do it when offered to option to do so. What explains this puzzle? An annuity is a financial contract that pays out a periodic amount for as long as the annuitant is alive, in exchange for an initial premium. Defined-contribution (DC) pension schemes usually make it voluntary to choose whether to buy an...

April 2018

Do pension participants want the freedom to choose or the freedom to snooze?

By Hendrik P. van Dalen and Kène Henkens Individual freedom of choice is a much heralded and cherished principle in democracies. Milton Friedman and colleagues at his alma mater, the University of Chicago, made this a cornerstone of their belief (Friedman & Friedman, 1990). The freedom of choice is the antidote to excessive government interference and an instrument which enables people to realize their goals and discipline agents and organizations. The call for freedom is getting louder as individualization of...

November 2017

Achieving pension goals in retirement: how to move Latin American DC second pillars forward

By Eduardo Rodriguez Montemayor PPI’s Editorial Board editorial@pensionpolicy.net Nobel-prize winner Robert C. Merton stated in more than one occasion that “our approach to DC savings is all wrong: we need to think about monthly income, not net worth”, in reference to how defined-contribution (DC) pension schemes usually focus on maximizing the amount of assets that people accumulate at the time of retirement instead of focusing on actually achieving a regular pension payment during retirement. Nicholas Barr and Peter Diamond, two of the global...

May 2017

Are We Ready to Make Decisions for Our Retirement?

PPI’s Op-Ed By Eduardo Rodriguez Montemayor Rapidly aging populations are forcing policymakers to rethink pensions. Defined contribution schemes are quickly becoming the norm, but people don’t yet seem ready for them. Academic evidence from economics and behavioural finance suggest that under many circumstances people may not be ready to take control of retirement savings investment. This is a challenging finding in a context where traditional defined benefit (DB) schemes, (which typically depend on individual salary history and length of service) are waning...