March 2021

Delivering prevention in an ageing world: Democratising access to prevention – Consultation paper

By International Longevity Centre UK Following our year-long Prevention in an ageing world programme that sparked conversations from Abu Dhabi to Taipei, Austin, Geneva, Sydney, London all the way to the G20 Health Ministers, the message is clear. It’s never too late to prevent. And the health and economic costs of failing to invest in preventative interventions across the life course are simply too high to ignore. We know that prevention works, but for too long cultural, economic and geographic divides...

Society, Economy and Development During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lesson for Emerging Economies

By Lovelina Little Flower FX, Sigamani Panneer, Hilaria Soundari, Lekha Bhat, Tresa Sugirtha J, Santhosh JS, Mhadeno Y Humtsoe, Vigneshwaran S A, Jeya Baskaran S and Samuel Paul Raj The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic impacted with multidimensional crisis has disrupted the functioning of the society, devastated global economy and has debilitated development. The appalling implications varied from country to country depending on their economy, health infrastructure, and socio-political factors. This in turn has also reflected on their responses to the pandemic...

Labour Market and Technological Development in Central Asia

By Roman Mogilevskii This paper discusses the current situation in the labour markets of the economies of Central Asia and considers the options available to use labour market policies to support the technological development of these economies. It analyses contemporary issues in the labour markets of these countries including the labour migration, informality, inequality, and financing of pensions through the taxation of labour. The paper provides recommendations for the modification of labour market policies to promote the economic diversification and...

What Are the Main Socio-Economic and Behavioral Characteristics That Determine Voluntary Pension Contributions for Self-Employed Workers in Chile?

By Valentina Ciriotto, Camila Cuevas, Francisco Aravena This study contributes to the literature by examining how socio-economic and behavioral characteristics such as neighborhood income inequality and peer effects determine voluntary pension contributions for self-employed workers in Chile. We use a survey representative of the Chilean household sector and we run five different probit regressions to elucidate voluntary contributions to the pension system for self-employed workers. Additionally, we run probit models with a heteroscedastic structure (hetprobit models). The results show that...

Seeing the forest for the trees: Why pension funds should take another look at forestry as an asset class

By Fiona Stewart, Samantha Power Pension funds invest our savings over decades, so it is not surprising that they have a long history of investing in forestry assets. Swedish investors can trace the ‘roots’ of forestry investment back to the 13th century. In the modern era, pension funds began investing in forestry about 50 years ago, in the Southern United States. Since then, this modality of investment has expanded across the U.S. and Canada, as well as in Oceania, Europe,...

February 2021

Income and Saving Responses to Tax Incentives for Private Retirement Savings

By Marc K. Chan, Todd Morris, Cain Polidano, Ha Vu Many governments offer tax concessions for retirement contributions to boost retirement savings and alleviate the fiscal pressures of population aging. In this paper, we show that income responses are crucial for understanding these impacts. Using tax-register data, we study large changes in caps on tax-favored contributions to individual retirement accounts in Australia. We find that higher caps increase retirement contributions considerably, with around two-thirds of this response financed by increases...

Late-career Unemployment Shocks, Pension Outcomes and Unemployment Insurance

By Samir Elsadek Mahmoudi In response to unemployment shocks, older workers deplete their 401(k)s, particularly after the waiving of the early withdrawal penalty on unemployment-motivated withdrawals at age 55. This paper shows that Unemployment Insurance (UI) keeps older workers from depleting their 401(k) assets following job losses. UI also incentivizes older unemployed workers to delay claiming their Social Security (SS) benefits beyond the earliest age of eligibility, 62. Overall, UI enhances the retirement income of the individuals having a history...

My word is my bond: Linking sovereign debt with national sustainability commitments

By Anderson Caputo Silva, Fiona Stewart The global COVID-19 pandemic has caused millions of deaths and the greatest global economic downturn in nearly a century. Public debt increased by $8.5 trillion in 2020, up to September, including by $1.4 trillion in emerging markets. At the same time, unprecedented levels of investment will be needed to fund COVID-19 stimulus and relief packages, as well as to address the challenges posed by climate change and the degradation of ecosystems that regulate the...

Millennials’ Adoption of Personal Financial Management (PFM) Technology and Financial Behavior

By Brian Walsh, HanNa Lim This paper uses the Technology Acceptance Model to analyze the factors associated with personal financial management technology (PFM) adoption among millennials and extends the analysis to understand how PFM adoption is associated with financial behavior. Data from the 2018 National Financial Capability Study was used for this analysis. Evidence suggests that millennials engaging in digital side hustles, such as Uber or Lyft, are significantly more likely to adopt PFM technology. Individuals experiencing higher financial pressure...