February 2023

Early Pension Withdrawals in Chile During the Pandemic

By Olga Fuentes, Olivia S. Mitchell & Félix Villatoro Chile, with one of the largest and best funded defined contribution programs in Latin America, held over USD $200 bn in assets at the onset of the Covid-19 crisis, or more than 80% of GDP. Reacting to populist pressures during the pandemic, however, the government gave non-retired participants three separate opportunities to tap into their retirement accounts, leaving some 4.2 million participants with zero retirement savings and draining around $50 bn...

The Progress of Social Security Measures for Labourers in India

By Dr. S.R. Keshava Social security has gained paramount importance in the changed economic scenario. Social security programmes are actively undertaken even in developed nations. The USA social security administration points out that it is much more than retirement program. One in Six Americans (57 million) receives social security benefits in USA. India also has enacted many social security measures for its needy citizens. In order to protect the welfare of unorganized workers the legislative measures namely minimunm wages Act, 1948,...

Financial literacy, longevity literacy, and retirement readiness

By Paul Yakoboski, Annamaria Lusardi & Andrea Hasler Six years of data from the TIAA Institute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index (P-Fin Index) clearly demonstrate that U.S. adults with greater financial literacy tend to have better financial well-being. This report shows that retirement readiness, a specific realm of financial well-being, likewise tends to be better among those with greater financial literacy. In addition, it shows that retirement readiness is also related to longevity literacy. While typically an overlooked factor, the importance of...

January 2023

Gender-Inclusive Financial and Demographic Literacy: Lessons from the Empirical Evidence

By: Giovanna Apicella, Enrico G. De Giorgi, Emilia Di Lorenzo & Marilena Sibillo Longevity crucially affects demand for pensions, insurance products and annuities. Consistent empirical evidence shows that women have historically experienced lower mortality rates than men. In this paper, we study a measure of the gender gap in mortality rates, we call “Gender Gap Ratio”, across a wide range of ages and for four countries: France, Italy, Sweden and USA. We show the stylized facts that characterize the trend...

Should Labor Abandon Its Capital? A Reply to Critics

By: David H. Webber Several recent works have sharply criticized public pension funds and labor union funds (“labor’s capital”). These critiques come from both the left and right. Leftists criticize labor’s capital for undermining worker interests by funding financialization and the growth of Wall Street. Laissez-faire conservatives argue that pension underfunding threatens taxpayers. The left calls for pensions to be replaced by a larger social security system. The libertarian right calls for them to be smashed and scattered into individually-managed...

Financial regret at older ages and longevity awareness

By Abigail Hurwitz & Olivia S. Mitchell Older people often express regret about financial decisions made earlier in life that left them susceptible to old-age insecurity. Prior work has explored one outcome, saving regret, or peoples’ expressed wish that they had saved more earlier in life. The present paper extends attention to five additional areas regarding financial decisions, examining whether older Americans also regret not having insured better, claimed benefits and quit working too early, and becoming financially dependent on...

Immigrant Swan Song

By Giovanni Peri The immigration debate often focuses on culture, identity, and the economy. In countries such as the Australia, Canada, and the United States where many immigrants—especially those who have moved for economic reasons—assimilate into the labor force quickly, the case for more immigration is built on its potential economic benefits. Research shows that immigration does not reduce the capital intensity of the economy, but rather it allows firms to expand and investments to adjust, and it also promotes...

Investment Risk Minimization and Optimization of Future Pension Plans

By Peter Vodička Thesis is a collection of three papers with several contributions to the optimisation of future pension plans for the long-term savers while minimising their investment risk. Since pillar aim is to improve the transparency of the pension funding, we develop investment strategies for individual savers which are easy to understand whilst at the same time performing optimally, or near optimally. Furthermore, all investment prospects are communicated in real terms. Principal investment strategy introduced in the thesis is called...

A Behaviorally Informed Financial Education Program for the Financially Vulnerable: Design and Effectiveness

By Ernst-Jan de Bruijn, Gerrit Antonides & Tamara Madern Financially vulnerable consumers are often associated with suboptimal financial behaviors. Evaluated financial education programs so far show difficulties to effectively reach this target population. In our attempt to solve this problem, we built a behaviorally informed financial education program incorporating insights from both motivational and behavioral change theories. In a quasi-experimental field study among Dutch financially vulnerable people, we compared this program with both a control group and a traditional program group....