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May 2024

Female Labor Supply and Rural Pension Eligibility in Brazil

By Gaurav Khanna, Margaret Lay, Stephanie Lee & Benjamin Thompson In 1991, Brazil expanded its rural old-age pension to cover millions of previously uncovered women, conditional on work requirements.  We use a difference-in-differences approach to show that this expansion drastically increased women’s employment by nine percentage points, or 26 percent.  This increase in labor force participation occurred among women who were immediately age-eligible, and among younger cohorts that would be eligible in the future. These results illuminate the capacity of...

The Incidence of Workplace Pensions: Evidence from the Uk’s Automatic Enrollment Mandate

By Rachel Scarfe, Daniel Schaefer & Tomasz Sulka We examine who bears the costs of mandated workplace pension programs, exploiting the quasi-experimental rollout of automatic enrollment in the UK. Total compensation (take-home pay plus employer contributions) increases, driven by employer contributions, while the amount of take-home pay decreases. These effects differ by employer size, with take-home pay declining to an extent in the largest firms that we can rule out a pass-through to employees of more than 47%, significantly less...

How Hidden Costs Undermine Public Pensions in the US

 By Richard Ennis Public pension plans in the US incur exorbitant asset management costs. Most spend a lot and get nothing for it. High cost has hindered efforts to realize their actuarial return requirement. It has resulted in poor performance pretty much across the board. And yet, very few plans provide a full accounting of the costs they incur. Some still fail to net all their investment expenses from the returns they report. High cost is the Achilles heel of...

Intergenerational redistribution in a pay-as-you-go pension system

By Jacob Lundberg This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the generational wealth transfer within Sweden’s public pay-as-you-go pension system introduced in 1960. Using extensive administrative registers, the paper quantifies the contributions made and benefits received by each birth cohort. The findings reveal a substantial fiscal imbalance favouring the initial generation (born in the early 20th century), who received a net gain of $1.5 trillion in today’s present value, equivalent to up to 13% of their discounted lifetime income. This...

The growth of the older workforce

By Richard Fry & Dana Braga The share of older adults holding a job today is much greater than in the mid-1980s. Some 19% of adults ages 65 and older are employed today. In 1987, only 11% of older adults were working. Today’s share is similar to that of the early 1960s, when 18% of older Americans worked. As the employment rate among older adults has gradually risen since the 1990s, employment among younger workers has followed a different pattern. Jobholding...

Middle-aged and Older Adult Employment and the Perceived Risk of Running Out of Money during COVID-19: A Dynamic Panel Data Analysis

By Andy Sharma  The coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) adversely impacted the health of middle-aged and older adults and altered their economic outlook. Several national polls revealed older adults felt stress about money and many reported difficulties in paying expenses during 2021. While such descriptive reports have raised awareness, peer-reviewed studies utilizing panel data can offer additional insight. As such, the purpose of this study was to contribute to this growing literature by examining the demographic, economic, and health factors...

Pensioen SPECULOOS: Lessons from Brazil for Belgium

By Arun Muralidhar A commonly-accepted retirement goal for a healthy pension is for it to sustain the relatively higher standard-of-living of the latter part of one’s working life throughout retirement. A recent innovation implemented by Brazil in January 2023 might provide a solution to the pension challenges faced by Belgium, and more importantly, satisfy the key goals identified by Belgium Government. We recommend Belgium create and issue an innovative new bond – SPECial ULtra-long Obligatie (PensiOen) Salarisstook (SPECULOOS), known previously...

Financial Fragility, Financial Resilience, and Pension Distributions

By Robert Clark & Olivia S. Mitchell  We evaluate Americans’ financial robustness during the COVID-19 pandemic, using measures of financial resilience and financial fragility derived from U.S. surveys of persons aged 45 to 75 from 2020 to 2022. We analyze which factors were associated with resilience and fragility, discuss how these measures changed during the pandemic, and assess whether prepandemic resilience led to better outcomes during the period. Results show that stronger resilience was protective in terms of financial fragility,...

April 2024

Another brick on the Wall: On the Effects of Non-Contributory Pensions on Material and Subjective Well Being

By Rosangela Bando, Sebastian Galiani & Paul Gertler Public expenditures on non-contributory pensions are equivalent to at least 1 percent of GDP in several countries in Latin America and is expected to increase. We explore the effect of non-contributory pensions on the well-being of the beneficiary population by studying the Pensiones Alimentarias program established by law in Paraguay, which targets older adults living in poverty. Households with a beneficiary increased their level of consumption by 44 percent. The program improved...

Economic Consequences of Pension Bailouts: Evidence from the American Rescue Plan

By Michael Dambra, Phillip J. Quinn & John Wertz Multiemployer pension plans (MEPPs) provide retirement benefits for 11 million participants, yet until recently, hundreds of these pension plans – covering 3 million participants – faced insolvency. We use the 2021 passage of the American Rescue Plan Act to examine how pension bailouts affect the management and administration of pension plans. Consistent with the ARP inducing moral hazard, we find that MEPPs increase risk taking in investment allocations, increase benefit payments,...