Articles Archives - Page 127 of 136 - Pension Policy International

04FebFebruary 4, 2017

The Future of Labor and Employment Law in the United States

By Katherine V.W. Stone There is a serious problem with the labor and employment law system in the United States today: Unions have declined to the point where they represent less than 8 per cent of the private sector workforce, employee wages have stagnated for more than three decades, employers are cutting back on workers' health insurance and pensions, and there is a dramatic growth in the numbers of the working poor. At the same time, there has been a...

February 4, 2017

Articles, Labor Market, Regulation, System SustainabilityRegulation, Sustainability

04FebFebruary 4, 2017

Taxing Kenya’s M-Pesa Picks the Pockets of the Poor

By Liliana Rojas-Suarez Kenya has instituted a new tax that affects users of M-Pesa -- a widely popular phone-based money transfer service used by more than half of Kenya’s adult population. The new 10 percent excise duty on fees charged for money transfer services applies to mobile phone providers, banks, and other money transfer agencies. Operated by Safaricom, the largest mobile network operator in Kenya, M-Pesa accounts for the largest share of users of money transfer services. Users of M-Pesa...

February 4, 2017

Adequacy, ArticlesCoverage, Financial Inclusion

04FebFebruary 4, 2017

Aging, Social Security Design, and Capital Accumulation

By Antoine Dedry, Harun Onder & Pierre Pestieau This paper analyzes the impact of aging on capital accumulation and welfare in a country with a sizable unfunded social security system. Using a two-period overlapping generation model with potentially endogenous retirement decisions, the paper shows that the type of aging, i.e. declining fertility or increasing longevity, and the type of unfunded social security system, i.e. defined contributions or defined benefits, are important in understanding this impact. Moreover, the analysis provides a...

February 4, 2017

Adequacy, Articles, Pension designSocial Pensions, Social Protection

04FebFebruary 4, 2017

Initiate Deficits to Strengthen Public Finances: The Role of Private Pensions

By Ales Berk, Dragan Jovanovic & Joze Sambt In this paper we use our comprehensive pension system model calibrated to the real demographic, employment and retirement data, measure transition costs of implementing mandatory private second-pillar into the pension landscape and consider fiscal sustainability of pension system. We report sensitivity to the most relevant parameters both within a second-pillar and a pay-as-you-go, and argue that fiscal sustainability and improved (higher) accrual rates are not incompatible policy goals if only pension reform...

February 4, 2017

Articles, Investing, RegulationRegulation, Replacement Rate

04FebFebruary 4, 2017

Risk of Disability, Old Age and Death: Pension Sustainability in Colombia

By Sergio Clavijo, Alejandro Vera Sandoval, David Malagón, Laura Clavijo, Andrea Ríos Serna, Ekaterina Cuellar & Nelson Vera This document concludes that the sustainability of the RPM (Pay-as-you-go, defined benefits public regime) looks fragile and is threatened by massive transfers from the RAIS (defined contributions private regime) to the RPM. The fiscal deficit of the RPM could be rising from 140% of GDP (in NPV) to 228% of GDP during the next three decades on account of the migration of...

February 4, 2017

Aging, Articles, System SustainabilityCorporate Governance, Regulation

04FebFebruary 4, 2017

Behavioural Science in Law & Policy: Evidence, Ethics, & Expertise

By Newcastle University Behavioural economics, and behavioural science more generally, has become an increasingly salient aspect of modern policy debates. Despite the current enthusiasm amongst governments and policy-makers for behavioural approaches, there are potential problems with the use of the behavioural sciences to formulate public policy, many of which remain underexplored. This workshop brought together papers from a range of different disciplinary, regulatory, and practical perspectives to examine the potential benefits and pitfalls of behavioural science as applied to policy. The workshop...

February 4, 2017

Articles, RegulationBehavior, Regulation

04FebFebruary 4, 2017

Building Long-Term Portfolio Benchmarks for Pension Funds in Emerging Economies

By Heinz P. Rudolph & Jorge Sabat The movement from a defined benefit to a defined contribution pension system has important implications in the area of portfolio allocation. While the focus of defined benefit pension funds is essentially in the long term, some defined contribution funds might have incentives to invest with shorter-term horizons. The case of open pension funds, such as the ones in several countries in Latin America and Central and Eastern European countries, shows that competition on...

February 4, 2017

Articles, InvestingSustainability

04FebFebruary 4, 2017

Towards Sustainable But Still Adequate Pensions in the EU: Theory, Trends and Simulations

By Juraj Draxler & Jorgen Mortensen This report is a summary of the research project on the 'Adequacy and Sustainability of Old-Age Income Maintenance' (AIM). Thirteen institutes from across the EU have collaborated on the task of assessing the situation of today’s pensioners and providing insights into future trends and policy options for securing adequate income for EU pensioners. The AIM project produced several state-of-the-art additions to the debate on EU pension reforms. Among others, the National Institute of Economic and...

February 4, 2017

Adequacy, Articles, System SustainabilitySustainability

04FebFebruary 4, 2017

The Role of Social Security in Overall Retirement Resources: A Distributional Perspective

By Alice Henriques & John Sabelhaus During recent decades, the US employer-sponsored retirement system has undergone a major shift from primarily defined benefit (DB)-type plans to primarily defined contribution (DC)-type plans. Furthermore, in the past decade, participation in employer retirement plans has fallen, particularly for younger and lower-income families. In light of this, there is growing concern that wealth accumulation through employer-provided pension plans is falling short, especially for the bottom half of the income distribution. However, focusing only on...

February 4, 2017

Articles, Pension design, RegulationCoverage, Mandatory pensions, Occupational Pensions, Voluntary pensions

04FebFebruary 4, 2017

Non-Contributory Pensions Number-Gender Effects on Poverty and Household Decisions

By Miguel Ángel Borrella, Mariano Bosch & Marcello Sartarelli Non-contributory pensions, designed to reduce old-age poverty particularly in countries with low contributory coverage, may induce a variety of household behavioural responses. This paper tests whether they vary with beneficiaries number and gender in Bolivia, one of the countries with the lowest contributory coverage worldwide. Taking advantage of a discontinuity in eligibility at age 60 in the Renta Dignidad pension, we estimate these effects by using a bi-dimensional regression discontinuity design,...

February 4, 2017

Articles, Pension design, SavingsCoverage, Mandatory pensions, Sustainability, Voluntary pensions

February 2017