May 2017

24May

The Impact of Partisanship in the Era of Retrenchment. Insights from Quantitative Welfare State Research

By Frank Bandau (University of Bamberg) Does government partisanship matter when it comes to the size and generosity of the welfare state? While the answer to this question is clearly positive for the ‘golden age’, there is so far no clear-cut answer with regard to the subsequent era of welfare retrenchment. This is by no means due to a lack of research. Quite to the contrary, a substantial number of macro-quantitative studies published over the past 15 years have addressed...

May 24, 2017
Adequacy, Articles, Regulation,
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24May

The Evolution of ESMA and Direct Supervision: Are there Implications for EU Supervisory Governance?

By Elizabeth Howell (University of Cambridge) The European Securities and Markets Authority (‘ESMA’) was established over six years ago. It, and its sibling bodies for banking, and the insurance and occupational pensions sector, emerged from the ashes of the crises, and the agencies have been the topic of much discussion in academic scholarship from a variety of perspectives. This article provides a new situating of ESMA within the broader policy context. Employing empirical observations, and rooting it within the related...

May 24, 2017
Articles, Investing, Regulation, Supervision, ,
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22May

The Swiss Occupational Pension System: A Governance View

By Nadège Bregnard (University of Neuchatel) This paper describes the current Swiss occupational pension system with a focus on its governance aspects by emphasizing on the minimum guarantees established by the law, the governance-related requirements, and the most recent supervision framework. It documents in details how the various and different Swiss pension funds are structured and organised and identify six key structure characteristics to classify them. The major distinction with other country pension systems is that pure defined-contributions plans do...

May 22, 2017
Articles, Regulation, Supervision, System Sustainability, ,
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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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08May

The Politics of Social Protection in Ghana: Policy Reform in a Competitive African Democracy (2000-2014)

By Eduard Grebe (Stellenbosch University) The Kufuor (New Patriotic Party) administration of 2000-2008 implemented substantial reforms of the contributory social insurance system (including the introduction of a national health insurance scheme and a new 'three tier' pensions system), and introduced a range of social assistance schemes targeted at the 'extreme poor'. This paper analyses the factors that drove policy reform and the broad cross-party consensus that emerged despite highly competitive elections. Electoral dynamics played a significant role, and this is...

May 8, 2017
Articles, Pension design, Regulation, ,
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08May

The Impact of Pensions, Transfers and Taxes on Child Poverty in Europe: The Role of Size, Pro-Poorness and Child Orientation

By Ron Diris (KU Leuven), Frank Vandenbroucke (University of Amsterdam) & Gerlinde Verbist (University of Antwerp) We assess the impact of redistributive policy on child poverty across 29 European welfare states, using EU SILC 2005–2012. We distinguish between spending on pensions, spending on other cash transfers and taxation. For each of these instruments of redistribution, we further distinguish three features: size, pro-poorness and targeting towards households with children. Pensions are generally neglected in analyses on child poverty, but are relevant...

May 8, 2017
Articles, Labor Market, Regulation,
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April 2017

24Apr

Disarming Puerto Rico’s Pension Time Bomb

By Richard J. Cooper, Luke A. Barefoot, Daniel J Soltman & Antonio Pietrantoni (Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP) With the long-delayed commencement of negotiations between the new government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (the “Commonwealth”) and its financial creditors finally underway, and the expiration of the existing stay on creditor actions looming, much of the financial press’ attention over the next several weeks will undoubtedly be focused on whether the government of Puerto Rico can reach an out...

April 24, 2017
Articles, Regulation, System Sustainability
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24Apr

Disarming Puerto Rico's Pension Time Bomb

By Richard J. Cooper, Luke A. Barefoot, Daniel J Soltman & Antonio Pietrantoni (Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP) With the long-delayed commencement of negotiations between the new government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (the “Commonwealth”) and its financial creditors finally underway, and the expiration of the existing stay on creditor actions looming, much of the financial press’ attention over the next several weeks will undoubtedly be focused on whether the government of Puerto Rico can reach an out...

April 24, 2017
Articles, Regulation, System Sustainability
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24Apr

Retirement Security: The Importance of Conflict-Safe Advice

By Andrew L. Oringer (Dechert LLP) This article is adapted from testimony given by Andrew L. Oringer on March 24, 2009 before the House Subcommittee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. The testimony was given during the Subcommittee's hearings on the regulations of the US Department of Labor regarding exemptions for certain investment advice. (more…)

April 24, 2017
Articles, Pension design, Regulation, System Sustainability, ,
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