February 2017

03Feb

Simplifying Choices in Defined Contribution Retirement Plan Design

By Donald Keim & Olivia S. Mitchell In view of the growth and popularity of defined contribution pensions, along with the government’s growing attention to retirement plan costs and investment choices provided, it is important to understand how people select their retirement plan investments. This paper shows how employees in a large firm altered their fund allocations when the employer streamlined its pension fund menu and deleted nearly half of the offered funds. Using administrative data, we examine the changes...

February 3, 2017
Articles, Investing, Labor Market,
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03Feb

Poverty, Inequality, and Social Policy in Transition Economies

By Branko Milanovic What happens to poverty and income inequality during the early period of transition to a market economy? Poverty is on the rise, and income inequality widens. Better targeting of social assistance and pension reform are the necessary policy reforms. In examining what happens to poverty and income inequality during the early period of transition to a market economy, Milanovic covers the period up to 1993. His analysis includes almost all transition economies that were not affected by...

February 3, 2017
Articles, Labor Market,
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03Feb

Does the Chilean Pension Model Influence Life Satisfaction? A Multilevel Longitudinal Analysis

By Esteban Calvo This study assesses the influence of the Chilean old-age pension model on the life satisfaction of older adults across the world. Numerous countries have implemented similar old-age pension reforms, combining individualization of risk through pension privatization and redistribution of resources through mechanisms such as non-contributory pensions. Using data for 126,560 adults age 45 and over living in 91 countries over the period 1981-2008, and employing three-level hierarchical linear regressions, this study finds that on average redistribution increases...

February 3, 2017
Aging, Articles, Labor Market
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03Feb

Social Protection Floors Volume 1: Universal Schemes

By Isabel Ortiz, Valérie Schmitt & Loveleen De This volume showcases universal old-age and disability pensions as well as universal maternity and child protection schemes in developing countries like Argentina, Bolivia, Cabo Verde, China, Colombia, Lesotho, Mongolia, Rwanda, South Africa, Thailand, Timor Leste and Trinidad and Tobago. The volumes in this Ilo series present best country experiences, useful for South-South learning, for practitioners, and to provide the basis for better informed policy-making. Full Content: SSRN

February 3, 2017
Articles, Labor Market, Regulation
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03Feb

Non-contributory pensions

By Sebastian Galiani, Paul Gertler & Rosangela Bando The creation of non-contributory pension schemes is becoming increasingly common as countries struggle to reduce poverty. Drawing on data from Mexico's Adultos Mayores Program (Older Adults Program) - a cash transfer scheme aimed at rural adults over 70 years of age - we evaluate the effects of this program on the well-being of the beneficiary population. Exploiting a quasi-experimental design whereby the program relies on exogenous geographical and age cutoffs to identify...

February 3, 2017
Adequacy, Labor Market, News
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03Feb

Pensions as a Form of Executive Compensation

By Lisa Goh and Yong Li This paper investigates the role of pensions as an element of total executive compensation, and the relationship between pensions and performance-based compensation in executive pay. Using hand-collected data on FTSE 100 CEOs and senior executives from 2004−2011, we document that pensions function as a substitute for performance-based com-pensation (primarily bonuses) in both cross-sectional and time-series settings. We also examine the effect of corporate governance characteristics on executive pensions. We find that corporate governance characteristics...

February 3, 2017
Labor Market,
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03Feb

Pension Coverage for Parents and Educational Investment in Children : Evidence from Urban China

By Yang Du and Ren Mu When social security is established to provide pensions to parents, their reliance upon children for future financial support decreases, and their need to save for retirement also falls. In this study, the expansion of pension coverage from the state sector to the non-state sector in urban China is used as a quasi-experiment to analyze the intergenerational impact of social security on education investments in children. In a difference-in-differences framework, a significant increase in the...

February 3, 2017
Adequacy, Labor Market
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03Feb

Building Voluntary Pension Schemes in Emerging Economies

By Rodolph Heinz After the financial crisis, some Central and Eastern Europe countries partially or totally reversed the pension reforms they had initiated in the previous two decades. In the presence of an aging population in the region, reductions in replacement rates will be the most likely adjustment mechanism for the social security systems to remain fiscally sustainable. In some other emerging economies, mandatory funded schemes are operating with low contribution rates, and policy makers have not been able to...

February 3, 2017
Labor Market, System Sustainability
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03Feb

Tax treatment of pensions and pensioners

By OECD The personal tax system plays an important role in old-age support. Pensioners often do not pay social security contributions. Personal income taxes are progressive and pension entitlements are usually lower than earnings before retirement, so the average tax rate on pension income is typically less than the tax rate on earned income. In addition, most income tax systems give preferential treatment either to pension incomes or to pensioners, through additional allowances or credits to older people. Full Content: OECD

February 3, 2017
Labor Market
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