June 2017

11Jun

Public Pension Reform and the Takings Clause

By Michael B. Kent Jr. (Campbell University) Of the many current issues facing state and local governments, perhaps one of the most pressing is public pension reform. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are nearly 4,000 public pension systems in the United States, the vast majority (3,742) of which are administered by local governments. As of 2014, these systems had more than 19,000,000 members and more than 9,000,000 beneficiaries receiving periodic payments. But many of these systems are in...

June 11, 2017
Articles, Pension design, Regulation, System Sustainability, ,
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11Jun

We’ll Live to 100 – How Can We Afford It?

The challenges we face to provide our ageing societies with a financially secure retirement are well-known. In most countries around the world, standards of living and healthcare advancements are allowing people to live longer. This should be celebrated, but we should also consider the implications for the financial systems that have been designed to meet our retirement needs, which in many countries are already under severe strain. This report has been produced as part of the Forum’s Retirement Investment Systems...

June 11, 2017
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, , ,
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06Jun

Assessing the Demand for Micropensions Among India's Poor

By Olivia S. Mitchell (University of Pennsylvania) & Anita Mukherjee (University of Wisconsin) Using new data from a field experiment in India, we test hypotheses about micropension design in a poor population. We elicit demand for the basic micropension in addition to variants with different minimum withdrawal ages, government match rates, and options for lump sum withdrawal. A majority (80%) of respondents report interest in the micropension, and the amount they are willing to contribute would be enough to cover...

June 6, 2017
Articles, Pension design, Savings, ,
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06Jun

Assessing the Demand for Micropensions Among India’s Poor

By Olivia S. Mitchell (University of Pennsylvania) & Anita Mukherjee (University of Wisconsin) Using new data from a field experiment in India, we test hypotheses about micropension design in a poor population. We elicit demand for the basic micropension in addition to variants with different minimum withdrawal ages, government match rates, and options for lump sum withdrawal. A majority (80%) of respondents report interest in the micropension, and the amount they are willing to contribute would be enough to cover...

June 6, 2017
Articles, Pension design, Savings, ,
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04Jun

Long-Run Biological Interest Rate for Pay-as-You-Go Pensions in Advanced and Developing Countries

By Masahiro Nozaki (International Monetary Fund) How much of an internal rate of return would a sustainable pay-as-you-go pension system offer current and future generations equally? The answer is the sum of the Long-Run Biological Interest Rates (LBIR), the real-world equivalent of Samuelson's (1958) biological interest rate, and future productivity growth. Reflecting global population ageing, the median LBIR across 172 countries is as low as 1 percent per year. The LBIRs are particularly low in advanced countries, estimated to be...

June 4, 2017
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, ,
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May 2017

28May

Pension Reform Options in Chile: Some Tradeoffs

By Marika Santoro (International Monetary Fund) In this paper, we study the macroeconomic impact of pension reform options in Chile, using a dynamic general equilibrium model. The main reform proposal considers raising contributions (employer side) and vehicle additional proceeds to individual accounts and to increase the support of solidarity pensions. We model increased contributions as a labor tax. We find the impact of this reform on GDP to be negative in the near to the medium run, with GDP declining...

May 28, 2017
Adequacy, Articles, Pension design, Regulation, ,
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22May

Interactions between Financial Incentives and Health in the Early Retirement Decision

By Pilar Garcia-Gomez & Eddy van Doorslaer (Erasmus University Rotterdam); Titus J. Galama (USC Center for Economic and Social Research) & Ángel López Nicolás (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) We present a theory of the relation between health and retirement that generates testable predictions regarding the interaction of health, wealth and financial incentives in retirement decisions. The theory predicts (i) that wealthier individuals (compared to poorer individuals) are more likely to retire for health reasons (affordability proposition), and (ii) that health problems...

May 22, 2017
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, ,
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22May

Dangerous Flexibility – Retirement Reforms Reconsidered

By Axel H. Börsch-Supan, Tabea Bucher-Koenen, Vesile Kutlu-Koc & Nicolas Goll (Max Planck Society for the Advancement of the Sciences) Flexible retirement is supposed to increase labor supply of older workers without touching the third rail of pension politics, the highly unpopular increase of the retirement age. While this may have intuitive appeal, this paper shows that it might be wishful thinking. Economic theory tells us that flexible retirement policies can have a zero or positive effect on labor force...

May 22, 2017
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, , ,
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14May

Pension Reforms in the EU since the Early 2000’s: Achievements and Challenges Ahead

By Giuseppe Carone & Per Eckefeldt (European Commission); Luigi Giamboni, Veli Laine & Stephanie Pamies Most EU Member States have carried out substantial pension reforms over the last decades in order to enhance fiscal sustainability, while maintaining adequate pension income. The intensity of pension reforms has been particularly strong since 2000. These reforms have been implemented through a wide range of measures that have substantially modified the pension system rules and parameters. One of the most important elements of pension...

May 14, 2017
Articles, Pension design, Regulation,
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14May

Pension Reforms in the EU since the Early 2000's: Achievements and Challenges Ahead

By Giuseppe Carone & Per Eckefeldt (European Commission); Luigi Giamboni, Veli Laine & Stephanie Pamies Most EU Member States have carried out substantial pension reforms over the last decades in order to enhance fiscal sustainability, while maintaining adequate pension income. The intensity of pension reforms has been particularly strong since 2000. These reforms have been implemented through a wide range of measures that have substantially modified the pension system rules and parameters. One of the most important elements of pension...

May 14, 2017
Articles, Pension design, Regulation,
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