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February 2017

Inside Debt

By Alex Edmans & Qi Liu Existing theories advocate the exclusive use of equity-like instruments in executive compensation. However, recent empirical studies document the prevalence of debt-like instruments such as pensions. This paper justifies the use of debt as efficient compensation. Inside debt is a superior solution to the agency costs of debt than the solvency-contingent bonuses and salaries proposed by prior literature, since its payoff depends not only on the incidence of bankruptcy but also firm value in bankruptcy....

Can Low Income Countries Afford Basic Social Protection? First Results of a Modelling Exercise

By Karuna Pal, Christina Behrendt, Florian Leger, Michael Cichon & Krysztof Hagemejer This report presents the methodology and the results of a modelling exercise that demonstrates that basic social protection benefits are not out of reach for low-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, even though some international assistance would be necessary for a transitory period. The Social Protection Sector of the International Labour Organization (ILO) has estimated the cost of basic social protection benefits education, health, pensions) for a selected number...

The Norway Model

By David Chambers, Elroy Dimson & Antti Ilmanen The Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global was recently ranked the largest fund on the planet. It is also highly rated for its professional, low-cost, transparent, and socially responsible approach to asset management. Investment professionals increasingly refer to Norway as a model for managing financial assets. We present and evaluate the strategies followed by the Fund, review long-term performance, and describe how it responded to the financial crisis. We conclude with some lessons...

Adequacy (2) : Pension entitlements of recent retirees

By Edward Whitehouse & Asta Zviniene This note discusses how expected benefit levels can be assessed. The note points out the measurement of current benefit levels that are observable: they do not depend on any assumptions about the future. However, they do depend on past contribution patterns, macroeconomic developments and parameters and rules of the pension system rules that, in many cases, no longer apply today. This briefing discusses the measurement of empirical average pension levels, minimum pensions and the...

The Separation of Intelligence and Control: Retirement Savings and the Limits of Soft Paternalism

By Jacob Russell “Soft paternalism” is in vogue among academics and lawmakers, but too much is being asked of it. This Article studies soft paternalist techniques — including nudging and disclosure — that have been used in the employer-sponsored retirement system. Defined-contribution retirement plans represent an ideal test case for libertarian paternalism: there has been extensive experimentation, and it has often been held up as a success by nudge advocates. In particular, this Article focuses on investment allocation decisions in...

The Life-Cycle Personal Accounts Proposal for Social Security: An Evaluation

By Robert J. Shiller The life-cycle accounts proposal for Social Security reform has been justified by its proponents using a number of different arguments, but these arguments generally involve the assumption of a high likelihood of good returns on the accounts. A simulation is undertaken to estimate the probability distribution of returns in the accounts based on long-term historical experience. U.S. stock market, bond market and money market data 1871-2004 are used for the analysis. Assuming that future returns behave...

Financial Literacy and Financial Education: Review and Policy Implications

By Annamaria Lusardi In recent years, as workers have gained an unprecedented degree of control over their pensions and savings, the importance of financial literacy and financial education has increased considerably. Large changes in the structure of financial markets, labor markets, and demographics in developed countries have led to this change. Consumers have a bewildering array of complex financial products - from reverse mortgages to annuities - to choose from, making saving decisions increasingly complex. Knowledge about the working of...

Adequacy (1) Pension entitlements, replacement rates and pension wealth

By Edward Whitehouse This note briefly sets out a methodology for calculating prospective pension entitlements promised in the future to today’s workers. This method can (and has been) applied to a wide range of countries with very different pension systems. The entitlements shown here are prospective. It looks at theoretical values and so illustrates the way the current parameters and rules of pension systems will work for different example individuals. This can be used to assess the adequacy of future...

Economic integration across Latin America: evidence from labor markets, 1990-2013

By Daniel Lederman & Raymond Robertson Combining macroeconomic and microeconomic data and three indicators of international market integration, this paper assesses the degree to which Latin American labor markets are integrated. The results suggest that relative to East Asia, Latin American labor markets are somewhat more integrated, but considerable differences across countries persist. In addition, the evidence indicates that the degree of labor market integration across Latin American borders is significantly less than that of labor markets within Mexico and...

Understanding the dynamics of labor income inequality in Latin America

By Carlos Rodriguez Castelan, Luis Felipe Lopez-Calva, Nora Lustig & Daniel Valderrama Since the early 2000s, after a long period of wide and persistent gaps, Latin America has experienced a steady decline in income inequality. This paper presents evidence of a trend reversal in labor income inequality, which is considered the main factor behind such a decline in income inequality across the region. The analysis shows that, while labor income inequality increased during the 1990s, with heterogeneous experiences across countries,...