March 2018

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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19Mar

Social Security Claiming Decisions: Survey Evidence

By John B. Shoven, Sita Nataraj Slavov & David A. Wise While research shows that there are large gains in lifetime wealth from delaying claiming Social Security, most people claim at or before full retirement age. We fielded an original, nationally representative survey to gain insight into people’s rationales for their Social Security claiming decisions, their satisfaction with their past claiming decisions, and how they financed any gap between retirement and claiming. Common rationales for claiming Social Security before full...

March 19, 2018
Aging, Articles, Pension design, Savings, ,
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12Mar

Social Security, Medicare and Government Pensions: Get the Most Out of Your Retirement and Medical Benefits

By Joseph Matthews Your complete guide to Social Security retirement and medical benefits Social Security, Medicare, SSI and more explained in this all-in-one resource that gets you the most out of your retirement benefits.  Learn all about: Social Security benefits (including new rules on spousal and dependents benefits) Medicare & Medicaid veterans, FERS, and CSRS benefits Completely updated for 2018. Read more HERE

March 12, 2018
Books, Pension design,
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12Mar

Suggestions for a Scheme of Old Age Pensions: With an Introductory Chapter Dealing with the Report of the Committee on Old Age Pensions

By Lionel Holland Excerpt from Suggestions for a Scheme of Old Age Pensions: With an Introductory Chapter Dealing With the Report of the Committee on Old Age Pensions. The Report of the Committee on Old Age Pensions, which was appointed in July, 1896, has at length been issued. The circumstances which led up to the appoint ment of this Committee may be sufficiently indicated in a few sentences. Read more HERE

March 12, 2018
Books, Pension design
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05Mar

Pension Plans and Employee Performance: Evidence, Analysis, and Policy

By Richard A. Ippolito In this provocative book, Richard A. Ippolito explores the relationship between employees' preferences for certain types of pension plans and their productivity. Ippolito begins by reviewing how pensions influence workers' behavior on the job, helping employers reduce early quit rates and increase early retirement rates. In a novel contribution, Ippolito then shows how pensions can assist employers in attracting and retaining workers who have personal attributes valued by the firm. Challenging the accepted view of defined contribution...

March 5, 2018
Books, Labor Market, Pension design,
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05Mar

Disclosure of costs, charges and investments in DC occupational pensions

UK Department for Work and Pensions This paper forms the Government’s response to a consultation on the draft Occupational Pension Schemes (Administration and Disclosure) (Amendment) Regulations 2018, which ran from the 26 October 2017 to 7 December 2017. The draft Regulations were designed to: introduce requirements for certain occupational schemes offering money purchase benefits to publish charge and transaction cost information, disclose this to members and others, and tell members where to find it; and introduce requirements for the same...

March 5, 2018
Articles, Pension design, Regulation, Savings, , ,
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February 2018

26Feb

Old-Age Provision and Homeownership – Fiscal Incentives and Other Public Policy Options

By Martina Eckardt (Editor),‎ Jörg Dötsch (Editor), & Stefan Okruch (Editor) In light of demographic change and the growing problems of traditional old-age security systems, this book discusses two essential instruments in connection with privately providing for old-age security: (1) savings in private pension schemes and (2) building up equity for home-ownership. Further, it assesses the relationship between the two instruments and offers a unique overview of the latest market developments. In order to represent the profound differences between the individual...

February 26, 2018
Books, Pension design, Savings,
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