Articles Archives - Page 43 of 140 - Pension Policy International

10MarMarch 10, 2022

Exponential Growth Bias and the Law: Why Do We Save Too Little, Borrow Too Much, and Fail to React on Time to Deadly Pandemics and Climate Change?

By Doron Teichman & Eyal Zamir Many human decisions, ranging from the taking of loans with compound interest to fighting deadly pandemics, involve phenomena that entail exponential growth. Yet a wide and robust body of empirical studies demonstrates that people systematically underestimate exponential growth. This phenomenon, dubbed the exponential growth bias (EGB), has been documented in numerous contexts, across different populations, using both experimental and observational methods. Despite its centrality to human decision making, legal scholarship has thus far failed to...

March 10, 2022

Articles, Pension design, Savings2022, Behavioral Science, COVID-19

10MarMarch 10, 2022

The Current State of U.S. Workplace Retirement Plan Coverage

By John Sabelhaus Despite widespread support for government policies aimed at improving workplace retirement plans, nearly half of wage and salary workers in the U.S. still lack coverage. The lack of employer-sponsored pensions or other workplace retirement saving plans has led to state-level government initiatives aimed at expanding coverage to workers whose employers do not offer such plans. Designing and implementing efforts to broaden workplace retirement plan coverage requires understanding what types of workers lack coverage, in terms of both...

March 10, 2022

Articles, System Characterization2022, Coverage, Occupational Pensions, Pension design, US

03MarMarch 3, 2022

War and Pensions

By John A. Turner, David M. Rajnes & Gerard Hughes Although war has had substantial effects, both positive and negative, on pension systems, the topic has received relatively little attention. War has played a role in the development of pension systems in many countries. Yet, no previous analysis has examined the full range of its effects. Source: Actuaries.org 434 views

March 3, 2022

Articles, System Characterization, System Sustainability2016, Political economy, Social Protection

03MarMarch 3, 2022

The Impacts of Matching Contributions on Retirement Savings: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment in Turkey

By Sadettin Haluk Çitçi & Halit Yanikkaya Using a dataset containing information for more than 39 million contracts and a quasi-experimental design provided by national matching contribution policy reform in Turkey, we study the effects of matching contributions on saving outcomes and determine heterogeneities in responses to matching contribution. Differences-in-differences estimations show that the program leads to a substantial rise in contributions paid. The matching contribution policy raises contributions paid by 18 percent. Moreover, after 30 percent sharp rise in...

March 3, 2022

Articles, Savings2022, Behavioral Science, Turkey

03MarMarch 3, 2022

Allowing Early Access to Retirement Savings: Lessons from Australia

By Nathan Wang-Ly & Ben Rhodri Newell In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments around the world introduced policies aiming to provide citizens with financial relief through early access to their retirement savings. In Australia, the Early Release of Super (ERS) scheme allowed eligible citizens to withdraw up to A$20,000 in funds between April and December 2020. Using data provided by a large Australian bank, we examine the characteristics of the individuals who withdrew, how they used the withdrawn...

March 3, 2022

Articles, Pension design, Savings, Withdrawals2021, Australia, COVID-19

24FebFebruary 24, 2022

Overpaying and Undersaving? Correlated Mistakes in Retirement Saving and Health Insurance Choices

By Leora Friedberg & Adam Leive Not everyone makes wise financial choices. A large body of research documents behavior inconsistent with well-informed consumers maximizing their expected utility of consumption. It remains unknown, however, whether such behavior is correlated across domains. This paper uses two novel datasets to test whether the quality of health insurance and retirement saving decisions are correlated. Using administrative panel data from a large employer, we find that people who overpay for health insurance by choosing a...

February 24, 2022

Articles, Savings2022, COVID-19, Equality, Financial Literacy

24FebFebruary 24, 2022

Assessing the Macroeconomic Impact of Structural Reforms in Ukraine

By Anil Ari & Gabor Pula Ukraine’s economic performance has been anemic since the early 1990s. A major impediment to productivity growth has been low investment, held back by lack of strong and independent institutions. This paper aims to assess the major areas of institutional weakness in Ukraine and quantify the long-term growth impact of catching-up to Poland in terms of the quality of major economic institutions and market development. Our analysis identifies the legal system as the area where...

February 24, 2022

Articles, Investment, System Sustainability2021, Investment, Pension Reform, Ukraine

24FebFebruary 24, 2022

How the Pandemic Altered Americans’ Debt Burden and Retirement Readiness

By Andrea Hasler, Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia S. Mitchell This paper analyzes Americans’ perceptions of being debt constrained. We focus on which population subgroups reported feeling most debt constrained, how this perception was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and how it relates to financial literacy and retirement readiness. To this end, we analyze two datasets, namely the 2020 and 2021 TIAA Institute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index files (P-Fin Index). The evidence shows that, prior to and during the pandemic, one in...

February 24, 2022

Articles, Savings2022, COVID-19, Equality, Financial Literacy, US

17FebFebruary 17, 2022

Earnings Inequality and Dynamics in the Presence of Informality: The Case of Brazil

By Niklas Engbom, Gustavo Gonzaga, Christian Moser & Roberta Olivieri Using rich administrative and household survey data spanning 34 years from 1985 to 2018, we document a series of new facts on earnings inequality and dynamics in a developing country with a large informal sector: Brazil. Since the mid-1990s, both inequality and volatility of earnings have declined significantly in Brazil’s formal sector. Higher-order moments of the distribution of earnings changes show cyclical movements in Brazil that are similar to those...

February 17, 2022

Articles, Labor Market2022, Brazil, Income, Informal Sector

17FebFebruary 17, 2022

Racial Wealth Disparities: Reconsidering the Roles of Human Capital and Inheritance

By John Edward Sabelhaus, Jeffrey P. Thompson In this paper, we present updated measures of racial disparities in wealth using the most recent data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), augmented by household-level estimates of defined benefit (DB) pension wealth developed by Sabelhaus and Volz (2020). Including this important asset, we find that racial wealth disparities are smaller than the numbers typically discussed in other research or in the media, but the disparities remain substantial. The paper proceeds by...

February 17, 2022

Articles, System Sustainability2021, Equality, Income, Pension design

March 2022

Exponential Growth Bias and the Law: Why Do We Save Too Little, Borrow Too Much, and Fail to React on Time to Deadly Pandemics and Climate Change?

The Current State of U.S. Workplace Retirement Plan Coverage

The Impacts of Matching Contributions on Retirement Savings: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment in Turkey

Allowing Early Access to Retirement Savings: Lessons from Australia

February 2022

Overpaying and Undersaving? Correlated Mistakes in Retirement Saving and Health Insurance Choices

Assessing the Macroeconomic Impact of Structural Reforms in Ukraine

How the Pandemic Altered Americans’ Debt Burden and Retirement Readiness

Earnings Inequality and Dynamics in the Presence of Informality: The Case of Brazil

Racial Wealth Disparities: Reconsidering the Roles of Human Capital and Inheritance