November 2017

Achieving pension goals in retirement: how to move Latin American DC second pillars forward

By Eduardo Rodriguez Montemayor PPI’s Editorial Board editorial@pensionpolicy.net Nobel-prize winner Robert C. Merton stated in more than one occasion that “our approach to DC savings is all wrong: we need to think about monthly income, not net worth”, in reference to how defined-contribution (DC) pension schemes usually focus on maximizing the amount of assets that people accumulate at the time of retirement instead of focusing on actually achieving a regular pension payment during retirement. Nicholas Barr and Peter Diamond, two of the global...

Pension Goals and Institutional Arrangements: Reforms DC 2.0 for Latin America

By Manuel Enrique Garcia Huitron Sr. (Inter-American Development Bank) & Eduardo Rodriguez-Montemayor (INSEAD) The pioneering pension reforms that brought a market for individual defined-contribution (DC) pension accounts to some Latin American countries in the 1980s and 1990s have failed to gain widespread social legitimacy. Such systems do not cover everyone, and the market design and regulatory infrastructure are not geared towards achieving the objective of maximizing the value of pensions. This failure stems from a combination of flaws in the...

Rethinking Limits on Tax-Deferred Retirement Savings in Canada

By William B. P. Robson (C.D. Howe Institute) Tax rules limiting the amount of tax deferral available to Canadians in various retirement saving vehicles need some measure of equivalency among them. Since 1990 this measure has been the Factor of Nine, based on the proposition that saving 9 percent of annual earnings will let a person buy a retirement annuity equal to 1 percent of pre-retirement income. A quarter century later, the flaws in the Factor of Nine are glaring...

Alternative Measures of Non-Cognitive Skills and Their Effect on Retirement Preparation and Financial Capability

By Gema Zamarro (University of Arkansas) Social science, more than ever, is drawing upon the insights of personality psychology. Though researchers now know that non-cognitive skills and personality traits, such as conscientiousness, grit, self-control, or a growth mindset could be important for life outcomes, they struggle to find reliable measures of these skills. Self-reports are often used for analysis but these measures have been found to be affected by important biases. We study the validity of innovative more robust measures...

What are the effects of expanding a social pension program on extreme poverty and labor supply ? evidence from Mexico’s pension program for the elderly (English)

By Clemente Avila Parra & David Ricardo Escamilla Guerrero In 2013, Mexico's Social Pension Program for the Elderly was expanded by changing its eligibility threshold from age 70 to age 65. Using pooled cross-sectional data from Mexico's National Household Income and Expenditure Survey, the exogenous variation around eligibility age was exploited to uncover the causal effects of this expansion on extreme poverty and labor supply of the newly eligible population, and to explore potential transmission mechanisms. Applying quasi-experimental methods, results...

What are the effects of expanding a social pension program on extreme poverty and labor supply ? evidence from Mexico's pension program for the elderly (English)

By Clemente Avila Parra & David Ricardo Escamilla Guerrero In 2013, Mexico's Social Pension Program for the Elderly was expanded by changing its eligibility threshold from age 70 to age 65. Using pooled cross-sectional data from Mexico's National Household Income and Expenditure Survey, the exogenous variation around eligibility age was exploited to uncover the causal effects of this expansion on extreme poverty and labor supply of the newly eligible population, and to explore potential transmission mechanisms. Applying quasi-experimental methods, results...

October 2017

Recreating Sustainable Retirement: Resilience, Solvency, and Tail Risk (Pension Research Council Series)

by Pension Reseach Council (Author), Olivia S. Mitchell (Editor), Raimond Maurer (Editor), P.Brett Hammond (Editor) The financial crisis and the ensuing Great Recession alerted those seeking to protect old-age security, about the extreme risks confronting the financial and political institutions comprising our retirement system. The workforce of today and tomorrow must count on longer lives and deferred retirement, while at the same time it is taking on increased responsibility for managing retirement risk. This volume explores new ways to think about,...

Expanding Canada Pension Plan Retirement Benefits: Assessing Big CPP Proposals

By Jonathan Rhys Kesselman (Simon Fraser University School of Public Policy) Current and growing deficiencies in many workers’ ability to maintain their accustomed living standards in retirement have evoked varied proposals for reform of Canada’s retirement income system. This study focuses on proposals for expanding the retirement benefits of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), and undertakes comparative analysis with proposals for reforms affecting workplace pensions and individual savings. It begins by reviewing key policy questions for the retirement income system...

Planning for Retirement? The Importance of Time Preferences

By Robert L. Clark, Robert G. Hammond, Christelle Khalaf, Melinda Sandler Morrill Ensuring retirement income security is a priority for individuals, employers, and policymakers. Using merged administrative and survey data for public sector workers in North Carolina, we explore how workers’ characteristics and preferences are associated with planning and saving for retirement. We then assess the “quality” of a retirement plan and whether retirement behavior is consistent with these plans. The findings indicate that the way that individuals discount future...

Saving the Next Billion from Old Age Poverty. Global Lessons for Local Action

This Book Project is the first of a series of initiatives by pinBox to jumpstart a global dialogue and collaborative action on pension inclusion across Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Book presents the policy outlook, past efforts and planned interventions by several developing countries as well as thematic chapters on the key principles and issues in design and implementation of inclusive pension arrangements. This book was realeased on October 12 on the pinBox Digital Micro-Pension Inclusion Roundtable 2017 For more information...