October 2017

Occupational Pension Funds (IORPs) & Sustainability: What Does the Prudent Person Principle Say?

By Alexandra Horvathova, Rasmus Kristian Feldthusen & Vibe Ulfbeck (University of Copenhagen) The European Union encourages individuals to save in private and occupational pension funds to complement their state saving-plans. Throughout their lives, employers directly sponsor occupational retirement saving plans, so individual employees may top up their future pensions. While the European Union clearly supports the formation and cross-border participation in these financial vehicles by adopting regulatory framework, the EU has also decided to determine a common investment decision standard...

Occupational Pension Funds (IORPs) & Sustainability: What Does the Prudent Person Principle Say?

By Alexandra Horvathova, Rasmus Kristian Feldthusen & Vibe Ulfbeck (University of Copenhagen) The European Union encourages individuals to save in private and occupational pension funds to complement their state saving-plans. Throughout their lives, employers directly sponsor occupational retirement saving plans, so individual employees may top up their future pensions. While the European Union clearly supports the formation and cross-border participation in these financial vehicles by adopting regulatory framework, the EU has also decided to determine a common investment decision standard...

Tonuity: A Novel Individual-Oriented Retirement Plan

An Chen, Peter Hieber & Jakob Klein (University of Ulm - Department of Mathematics and Economics) For insurance companies in Europe, the introduction of Solvency II leads to a tightening of rules for solvency capital provision. In life insurance, this especially affects retirement products that contain a significant portion of longevity risk (for example conventional annuities). Insurance companies might react by price increases for those products, and, at the same time, might think of alternatives that shift longevity risk (at...

September 2017

Nudging Retirement Savings: A Field Experiment on Supplemental Plans

By Robert L. Clark, Robert G. Hammond, Melinda Sandler Morrill, Christelle Khalaf Although supplemental saving plans can be an important part of an individual's financial security in retirement, contribution rates remain low, particularly among those with lower salaries and less education. We report findings from a field experiment that distributed an informational nudge containing information on key aspects of the employer-provided supplemental saving plans of older public employees in North Carolina. Among workers participating in a supplemental plan, individuals who...

Drawing Down Retirement Savings – Do Pensions, Taxes and Government Transfers Matter Much for Optimal Decisions?

By Bonnie-Jeanne MacDonald (Independent), Richard J. Morrison (Independent), Marvin Avery (Human Resources and Skills Development), Lars Osberg (Dalhousie University) This paper examines the importance of pensions (employment and social security), taxes and government transfers for alternative retirement savings drawdown strategies, based on Canadian evidence. Using as examples single elderly Canadians at the 10th, median and 90th percentiles of the income distribution, we use a lifetime utility framework to evaluate an illustrative set of six popular drawdown strategies. Our longitudinal dynamic...

Annuity Options in Public Pension Plans: The Curious Case of Social Security Leveling

By Robert L. Clark, Robert G. Hammond, Melinda S. Morrill, David Vanderweide Social Security Leveling is an annuity option that allows participants to receive a level income before and after age 62. The retiree receives a larger pension benefit prior to age 62, but then the pension benefit is lowered at age 62 when the individual is expected to claim Social Security benefits. This option is not uncommon in public pension plans, yet little is known about how this option...

August 2017

El Desempeño de Los Sistemas de Pensiones Privados En Latinoamérica

Por: Jos Ricardo Duarte Ojeda, Carlos Elizalde S Nchez, Mar a Teresa Casparri Los sistemas de pensiones de America Latina han vivido una oleada de reformas sin precedente en la decada de los noventa; el pionero es el caso de Chile, que en 1981 ha migrado del sistema de Reparto (PAYGO) al sistema de capitalizacion individual. Es un contrastante cambio de politica de corte neoliberal que ha privatizado las pensiones de los trabajadores, ocasionando una variedad de resultados. Este libro...

Sistemas de Pensiones en America Latina y Mexico

Por Juana Isabel Vera Lopez A nivel mundial, los sistemas de pensiones se encuentran en crisis debido a que sus regimenes y beneficios consideraron una situacion distinta a la actual. Fenomenos como el envejecimiento poblacion, aumento de la esperanza de vida, el aumento del trabajo informal, subempleo, auto empleo, entre otros factores han agravado esta situacion. En Mexico, en 1995 y 2007 se reformaron las legislaciones del IMSS e ISSSTE siguiendo los parametros internacionales. En estas dos decadas transcurridas desde...

An Evaluation of the Electronic Pension Payment System in Tajikistan

By Ruben Barreto & Natalie Chun (Asian Development Bank) Modernizing government-to-person (G2P) pension payments from traditional cash-based to modern electronic-based delivery systems can improve outcomes for pensioners, government entities, and financial services providers. Cash operations, though convenient in some circumstances, involve manual handling procedures in the distribution process that entail large overhead expenses and significant operational risks. These are highly susceptible to fraud and leakages due to difficulties in appropriately reconciling payments. However, experience has shown that implementing electronic-based G2P payments...

The Role of Self-Control on Retirement Preparedness of US Households

By Kyoung Tae Kim (University of Alabama), Jae Min Lee (Minnesota State University) & Eunice O. Hong (Sungshin Women's University) We examine the self-control problems of U.S households and their effects on households’ retirement preparedness based on the Behavioral Life-Cycle Hypothesis. Using the 2010 Survey of Consumer Finances dataset, the level of retirement adequacy was estimated with income replacement ratio (IRR), and only 42% of households were adequately prepared for retirement. Results from logistic regression analysis indicated that households with...