June 2019

Retire In-Home: A New Way to Use a Home to Guarantee Retirement Income

By Arun Muralidhar There is a growing retirement crisis and most of the focus has been on the fact that individuals are not saving enough for retirement, may not have access to pension schemes, and find it difficult to choose from a wide range of retirement products. One solution that has been considered is to improve access to Reverse Mortgages (RMs) so that individuals can convert their (possibly) single largest asset into a through-death income stream. However, current RMs are...

May 2019

Ensuring Retirement Security with Simple GLIDeS

By Adam Kobor, Arun Muralidhar There is a growing retirement crisis and most of the focus has been on the fact that individuals are not saving enough for retirement, may not have access to pension schemes, or are financially illiterate. More critically, assets/financial products available to investors, may not be appropriate for the typical individual saving for retirement. The goal of retirement is to try to guarantee a target level of income ideally from retirement till death. Current glide...

Pension Scheme Designs: Can It Influence Timing of Retirement? The Case of the Public Service Pension Scheme in Uganda

By Kibs Boaz Muhanguzi Ambiguity in literature about how pensions influence retirement decision can be a challenge to policy formulation unless further inquiry is done. This ambiguity could be attributed to a number of factors including the study scope, different pension designs and differing study methodologies. Using Uganda’s public service pension scheme, this study delves into exploring whether the scheme’s design influences timing of retirement. Using a probit model, analysis of the effect of pension o timing of retirement...

50 States of Gray: An Innovative Solution to the Defined Contribution Retirement Crisis

By Arun Muralidhar Another retirement crisis is looming as one-third of private-sector, typically poor and unsophisticated workers, probably have little to no pension security. The fifty states have decided to enact reforms, but they are unwilling to assume any liability. Effective reform should ensure a target, guaranteed, inflation/standard-of-living-indexed retirement income through death. The book proposes a four-step reform process that articulates roles, responsibilities, and sequencing of steps to effectively address the looming retirement crisis. Current reform models potentially expose...

Pension Fund Risk Management: Financial and Actuarial Modeling

By Marco Micocci, Greg N Gregoriou, Giovanni Batista Masala As pension fund systems decrease and dependency ratios increase, risk management is becoming more complex in public and private pension plans. Pension Fund Risk Management: Financial and Actuarial Modeling sheds new light on the current state of pension fund risk management and provides new technical tools for addressing pension risk from an integrated point of view. Divided into four parts, the book first presents the correct measurement of risk...

Retirement and Social Security

By Giam Cipriani, Tamara Fioroni In this paper, we analyse the effects of demographic change on a PAYG pension system, financed with a defined contribution scheme. In particular we examine the relationship between retirement, fertility and pensions in a three-period overlapping generations model. We focus on both the case of mandatory retirement and the case where the retirement age is freely chosen. In the case of mandatory retirement, increasing longevity has an unambiguously negative impact on fertility and pension...

Selfies for Portugal- An innovative Pan European Retirement Solution

By Robert C. Merton, Arun Muralidhar, Rui Seybert P Ferreira With a rapidly aging population, Portugal faces some serious pension challenges including a Social Security system which is under pressure, and pension benefits gradually approaching levels that will require individuals to supplement Social Security with private savings. In addition, Portugal has a low rate of financial literacy and hence transferring the responsibility of retirement planning to the general population runs a major risk of many individuals retiring poor. While some...

Mobile Coverage and its Impact on Digital Financial Services

By Leon Perlman, Michael Wechsler Digital Financial Services (DFS) is a relatively recent mobile-centric financial inclusion innovation in developing. Using ubiquitous mobile phones as the means of service access (primarily through 2G narrowband services, with broadband 3G and 4G potentially available). DFS provides the unbanked and underserved - many of whom live in rural areas - with access to basic financial services provided by banks and nonbanks such as mobile network operators and third party DFS providers (DFSPs)....

Retirement Choices by State and Local Public Sector Employees: The Role of Eligibility and Financial Incentives

Por Leslie E. Papke I analyze the effects of state public pension parameters on the retirement of public employees. Using a panel data set of public sector workers from 12 waves of the Health and Retirement Study, I model the probability of retirement as a function of pension wealth at early and normal retirement eligibility and Social Security coverage in the public sector job. I find that becoming eligible for early retirement, or receiving an early-out offer, significantly increases the...

Financial Literacy and Saving for Retirement among Kenyan Households

By Teresa Schützeichel In this paper I examine financial literacy and saving for retirement in Kenya using the household survey of 2016 from FinAccess Kenya. I use probit regressions to determine the effect financial literacy has on individuals saving regularly as well as saving for retirement. My findings show that households with higher levels of financial literacy will tend to have a higher likelihood to save on a regular basis and subsequently save for retirement. I find that women, the...