September 2020

Financial Access Challenges for Older Adults

By Joe Valenti In 2017, an estimated 8.4 million households in the United States, representing about 14 million adults, had no checking or savings account at a bank or credit union.1 This figure includes roughly 3.5 million households headed by someone age 50 or older.2 When combining this population—often called the unbanked—with households that have accounts but still use some alternative services such as check cashers or payday lenders, these numbers rise to nearly...

(Mis)Allocation Effects of an Overpaid Public Sector

By Tiago Cavalcanti, Marcelo Rodrigues Santos There is a large body of evidence showing that for many countries the structure of wages and pensions and the labor law legislation are different for public and private employees. Such differences affect the occupational choice of agents and might generate some type of misallocation. We develop a life-cycle model with endogenous occupational choice and heterogeneous agents to study the implications of an overpaid public sector. The model is estimated to be consistent...

2019 World Pensions Forum Held in EU Capital Before G7 Summit

By M. Nicolas J. Firzli The 8th World Pensions Forum was held 23-24 May: 130 pension executives and supranational experts representing $12 trillion in combined assets convened in Brussels to discuss “Effective Asset Ownership”. The Forum was pleased to note that some of our ideas were taken up by the Finnish presidency of the Council of Europe and the G7 Steering Committee – notably the empowerment of women entrepreneurs and the notion of institutional co-investment in private equity and sustainable...

The Impact of Social Security on Pension Claiming and Retirement: Active vs. Passive Decisions

By Rafael Lalive, Arvind Magesan, Stefan Staubli We exploit a unique Swiss reform to identify the importance of passivity, claiming social security benefits at the Full Retirement Age (FRA). Sharp discontinuities generated by the reform reveal that raising the FRA while imposing small early claiming penalties significantly delays pension claiming and retirement, but imposing large penalties and holding the FRA fixed does not. The nature of the reform allows us to identify that between 47 and 69% of individuals are...

Homeownership Effect on Retirement Adequacy and Government Transfers in Australia

By John R. Evans, Abdul Razeed Whilst the concept of an asset-based welfare system developed formally in the 1950s there is evidence in Australia that the philosophy developed well before then and has continued through advantages for those able to acquire a home over those that cannot in the retirement system. The net cost to government of the retirement system has been reduced below that which would have applied had the own home asset-based welfare system not been introduced....

August 2020

Pension System in Guinea Bissau: Key Challenges and Prospects for the Future

By Philippe Auffret The government of Guinea Bissau is considering implementing the pension fund included in the 2015 Budget Law. It requested a technical assistance from the World Bank to conduct an initial diagnostic of the pension system with a focus on the public service pension scheme. The objective of this note is an initial step to respond to this request. The analysis shows that it is not recommendable for Guinea Bissau to set up a pension fund for the...

Digital Finance New Times, New Challenges, New Opportunities

By Juan Antonio Ketterer Since the end of the great crisis of 2007 – 10 , the financial services industry began a process of accelerating change. New business models based on convergent technological developments are challenging the status quo of a long - established a nd traditional industry. The purpose of this document is to consider the...

Life Insurance: The Savings Solution for the Thai Elderly

By sivalap sukpaiboonwat The main objective of this work is investigating life insurance is the alternative choice of savings for Thai elderly. The study uses primary data from research questionnaire by online survey from the 400 observations in December 2018. The statistics used in the analysis include descriptive statistics composed of the percentage. The research finds the first rank of financial planning is the bank deposit with 32.1 percent, the second rank is life insurance with 27.3 percent and...

Insights on Financial Services Regulation

By John A Consiglio The debates around financial services regulation are fierce and unending, and with every new development or law, rigid positions seem to grow. In this insightful new book, expert author John A. Consiglio discusses developments in this vital part of the wide world of finance. Including discussions on the public interest elements of regulation, on informational asymmetry, and on the economist/regulator duopoly, Consiglio analyses various key contentious element of regulatory practices from both the regulators' and...

Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on a pan-European Personal Pension Product

By EIOPA THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION, Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Having regard to Regulation (EU) 2019/1238 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on a pan-European Personal Pension Product (PEPP)1 , and in particular the fourth subparagraph of Article 28(5), third subparagraph of Article 30(2), third subparagraph of Article 33(3), second subparagraph of Article 36(2), third subparagraph of Article 37(2), third subparagraph of Article 45(3) and the third subparagraph...