May 2017

01May

Non-Contributory Pensions and Savings: Evidence from Argentina

By Martín González-Rozada & Hernán Ruffo (Universidad Torcuato Di Tella) This paper examines the effects of Argentina's Plan de Inclusion Previsional (PIP), which changed the pension system in a way that generated a new noncontributory pillar, produced a huge expansion in pension coverage between 2005 and 2008 and a transfer of a vast amount of resources to households. Using a difference in differences methodology it is found that the PIP policy has reduced the incentives to work and to be...

May 1, 2017
Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, Savings, ,
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01May

The Effect of Non-Contributory Pensions on Saving in Mexico

By Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes (San Diego State Universit), Jorge Alonso Ortiz & Laura Juárez (ITAM) This paper examines the effects of non-contributory pension programs at the federal and state levels on Mexican households' saving patterns using micro data from the Mexican Income and Expenditure Survey. The federal program by itself appears to reduce the saving rate of households whose oldest member is either 18 to 54 or 65 to 69. State programs by themselves have no significant effects on household saving rates...

May 1, 2017
Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, Savings,
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April 2017

24Apr

Ethnic and Racial Disparities in Saving Behavior

By Mariela Dal Borgo (Bank of Mexico) Using pre-retirement data from the Health and Retirement Study, I find that median saving rates are 9p.p. larger for Whites than for Mexican Americans and Blacks. Two-thirds of each gap reflect changes in asset prices and a third reflects households’ active saving decisions. Since Blacks save more in pensions, only the racial gap disappears with the inclusion of retirement assets. Both saving gaps are mostly explained by differences in income and, especially for...

April 24, 2017
Articles, Labor Market, Savings
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14Apr

Poverty and Social Transfers in Hungary

By Christiaan N. Grootaert This study addresses the question of how well Hungary's system of cash social transfers helps prevent or alleviate poverty -whether different types of social transfer, or changes in eligibility rules, might better alleviate poverty. The social safety net in Hungary and other transition economies has undergone important changes. The conventional benchmark for measuring poverty in Hungary -the subsistence minimum- has lost much of its relevance because of the transition to a market economy. The author proposes...

April 14, 2017
Articles, Labor Market, Regulation,
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10Apr

We are Not All the Same: Key Law, Policy and Practice Strategies for Improving the Lives of Older Women in the Lower Mainland

By Canadian Centre for Elder Law (British Columbia Law Institute) In 2011 the Canadian Centre for Elder law (CCEL) started the Older Women’s Dialogue Project (OWDP) to identify and take action on barriers to the well-being of older women. While gender has a significant impact on life experience, research and policy analysis often renders older women invisible: feminist inquiry tends to focus on girls and women of child-bearing age and gender-neutral aging policy concentrates on the experiences of men. The...

April 10, 2017
Aging, Articles, Labor Market
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10Apr

Closing Routes to Retirement: How Do People Respond?

By Johannes Geyer & Clara Welteke (German Institute for Economic Research) We present quasi-experimental evidence on the employment effects of an unprecedented large increase in the early retirement age (ERA). Raising the ERA has the potential to extend contribution periods and to reduce the number of pension beneficiaries at the same time, if employment exits are successfully delayed. However, workers may not be able to work longer or may choose other social support programs as exit routes from employment. We...

April 10, 2017
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, Regulation, ,
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10Apr

Time for Retirement ‘Selfies’?

By Robert C. Merton (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) & Arun Muralidhar (George Washington University) To address the looming retirement crisis, many governments are introducing new pension programmes tied to employment for uncovered workers (NEST in the UK and Secure Choice in some US states). These attempt to improve access to pensions, and continue a trend of transferring responsibility for retirement security from governments and employers (via defined benefit [DB] plans) to the individual (via defined contribution [DC] plans), as neither...

April 10, 2017
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03Apr

Nudge for Good? Choice Defaults and Spillover Effects

By Claus Ghesla, Manuel Grieder & Jan Schmitz (ETH Zurich) Policy makers increasingly use choice defaults to promote 'good' causes by influencing socially relevant decisions in desirable ways, e.g., to increase retirement savings, charitable giving, or pro-environmental choices. Such default nudges are remarkably successful when judged by their effects on the targeted behaviors in isolation. However, there is scant knowledge about possible spillover effects of defaults on subsequent related choices. Theoretically, such behavioral spillover effects could amplify, eliminate or even...

April 3, 2017
Articles, Labor Market, Savings,
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March 2017

27Mar

Towards an Equitable and Sustainable Points System: A Proposal for Pension Reform in Belgium

By Erik Schokkaert (Catholic University of Leuven), Pierre Devolder (Catholic University of Louvain), Jean Hindriks (University of London) & Frank Vandenbroucke (University of Amsterdam) We describe the points system that has been proposed by the Belgian Commission for Pension Reform 2020-2040. Intragenerational equity can be realised in a flexible and transparent way through the allocation of points within a cohort. The intergenerational distribution is determined by fixing the value of a point for the newly retired and a sustainability parameter...

March 27, 2017
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, System Sustainability, , , ,
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26Mar

Redistribution Effect and Pension Choice: Theory and Evidence

By Hulai Zhang (Peking University) This paper mainly focuses on two issues, the factors influencing pension choice and the redistribution effect of the pension system in China. Our model studies the trade-offs of relative financial benefits and risks provided by various plans, as well as the accessibility to specific pension plans and accessibility to information on pensions. The features examined include individual features such as hukou, gender and education, family features like marital status and work features like job types....

March 26, 2017
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