April 2018

Pensions: More Information, Less Ideology : Assessing the Long-Term Sustainability Ofeuropean Pension Systems : Data Requirements, Analysis and Evaluations

By Tito Boeri,‎ Axel Borsch-Supan,‎ Agar Brugiavini,‎ Richard Disney,‎ Arie Kapteyn &‎ Franco Peracchi Europeans are living longer, and fewer now remain in the labour force as they grow older. Many European countries have responded to the ensuing financial pressure by reforming their public pension systems and health care programmes. There is considerable uncertainty as to the effects of these reforms - as they typically do not alter the unfunded nature of public welfare arrangements and this uncertainty is itself...

April 2, 2018
Books, Pension design, System Sustainability,
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02Apr

Pensions: Backgrounds, Trends and Issues

By Henry J. Mullen This text examines the extent to which pension plans invest in hedge funds and private equity, the potential benefits and challenges of hedge fund investments, the potential benefits and challenges of private equity investments, and what mechanisms regulate pension plan investments in hedge funds and private equity. Get the book Here!

April 2, 2018
Books, Investing, Pension design
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01Apr

How a New Bond Can Greatly Improve Retirement Security

By Adam Kobor (New York University (NYU)) & Arun Muralidhar (AlphaEngine Global Investment Solutions; George Washington University) 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. However, the bigger issue might be that the assets/financial products available to investors, including those that offer legal protection to plan sponsors, may not be appropriate for the typical...

April 1, 2018
Articles, Investing, Pension design, Slider-Left, , ,
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March 2018

26Mar

The Time Has Come to Revisit Solvency Funding Rules

By Norma L. Nielson (University of Calgary - Haskayne School of Business) Canadians are not fond of hearing news about people losing their hard-earned pensions because their employer misused the money. The thought of some Working Joe or Jane being deprived of a pension, after a lifetime of working for a company, is naturally repugnant. That is why regulations around defined-benefit pension plans are designed to force employers to keep their pension funds sufficiently solvent. But there are many ways...

March 26, 2018
Articles, Pension design, Regulation, ,
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19Mar

When I’m Sixty-four: The Plot Against Pensions and the Plan to Save Them

By Teresa Ghilarducci A crisis is looming for baby boomers and anyone else who hopes to retire in the coming years. In When I'm Sixty-Four, Teresa Ghilarducci, the nation's leading authority on the economics of retirement, explains how to confront this crisis head-on, revealing the causes behind the increasingly precarious economics of old age in America and proposing a bold plan to guarantee retirement security for every working citizen. Retirement is one of the hallmarks of a prosperous, civilized market...

March 19, 2018
Books, Pension design, Savings, ,
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19Mar

Gender and Social Security Reform: What’s Fair for Women?

By Neil Gilbert Aging populations are creating tremendous pressures on social security systems throughout the world, lifting the need for reform to the top of policy agendas. Proposed reforms often have different implications for men and women. At the same time, traditional family and gender roles are changing with the decline in fertility rates and the rapid rise in women's participation in the paid labor force.While trying to adapt social security systems to the fiscal demands of aging societies, policymakers...

March 19, 2018
Books, Labor Market, Pension design, ,
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19Mar

The High Cost of Good Intentions: A History of U.S. Federal Entitlement Programs

By John F. Cogan Federal entitlement programs are strewn throughout the pages of U.S. history, springing from the noble purpose of assisting people who are destitute through no fault of their own. Yet as federal entitlement programs have grown, so too have their inefficiency and their cost. Neither tax revenues nor revenues generated by the national economy have been able to keep pace with their rising growth, bringing the national debt to a record peacetime level. The High Cost of...

March 19, 2018
Books, Pension design, System Sustainability, , ,
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19Mar

Rescuing Retirement

By Teresa Ghilarducci,‎ Tony James,‎ Timothy Geithner Everyone deserves to be able to retire with dignity, but this core feature of the social contract is in jeopardy. Companies have swerved away from pensions, and most of the workforce has woefully inadequate retirement savings. If we don’t act to fix this broken system, rates of impoverishment for senior citizens threaten to skyrocket, and tens of millions of Americans reaching retirement age in the coming decades will be forced to delay retirement...

March 19, 2018
Books, Labor Market, Pension design,
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19Mar

Earnings Test, Non-actuarial Adjustments and Flexible Retirement

By Axel H. Börsch-Supan, Klaus Härtl, Duarte N. Leite In response to the challenges of increasing longevity, an obvious policy response is to gradually increase the statutory eligibility age for public pension benefits and to shut down pathways to early retirement such as special rules for women. This is, however, very unpopular. As an alternative, many countries have introduced “flexibility reforms” which allow combining part-time work and partial retirement. A key measure of these reforms is the abolishment of earnings...

March 19, 2018
Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, System Sustainability,
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