February 2017

Did Pension Plan Accounting Contribute to a Stock Market Bubble?

By Julia Coronado & Steven Sharpe During the 1990s, the asset portfolios of defined benefit (DB) pension plans ballooned with the booming stock market. Due to current accounting guidelines, the robust growth in pension assets resulted in a stealthy but substantial boost to the profits of sponsoring corporations. This study assesses the extent to which equity investors were fooled by pension accounting. First, we test whether stock prices reflected the fair market value of sponsoring firms’ net pension assets reported...

Changing Frameworks for Retirement Security

By Olivia S. Mitchell In 1963, the termination of the Studebaker Corporation’s pension plan wiped out or significantly reduced the pensions of thousands of the automaker’s employees and retirees. In response, Congress passed the 1974 Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), a monumental and revolutionary piece of legislation crafted to address corporate pension underfunding and set new rules regarding defined benefit (DB) and other retirement plans. ERISA also established the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation as a government-run insurer to serve...

5th Ethiopia economic update : why so idle? – wages and employment in a crowded labor market : draft for public launch

By World Bank Strong economic growth continued in 2014-15, but the drought slowed down Ethiopia’s growth to 8 percent in 2015-16. Exports have had their worst performance in the last decade and the current account balance remained large. Inflation is remarkable stable given the recent drought and even declining; it stood at 5.6 percent in October 2016. Understanding the nature of urban labor markets is important for a successful transition to a manufacturing and service-oriented economy and to further reduce...

International patterns of pension provision II: a worldwide overview of facts and figures

By Montserrat Pallares Miralles, Carolina Romero & Edward Whitehouse This paper presents and explains cross country data for mandatory publicly and privately managed pension systems around the world. This report is organized into three parts corresponding to three broad types of indicators. These indicators relate to: (i) the relevant contextual factors referred to here as environment; (ii) pension system design parameters; and (iii) indicators of performance. Part one of the report provides some information on the environment in which the...

Finance and Labor: Perspectives on Risk, Inequality and Democracy

By Sanford M. Jacoby This paper considers the association between financial development and labor-market outcomes such as risk and inequality. The relationship is not straightforward, however. It is mediated by politics at the national and corporate levels. Politics spurs financial development, which sets in motion countervailing efforts to restrain the effect of finance on inequality and risk. The empirical analysis relies on historical, comparative, and contemporary evidence. Emphasis is given to recent events in the United States: the political origins...

The Future of Labor and Employment Law in the United States

By Katherine V.W. Stone There is a serious problem with the labor and employment law system in the United States today: Unions have declined to the point where they represent less than 8 per cent of the private sector workforce, employee wages have stagnated for more than three decades, employers are cutting back on workers' health insurance and pensions, and there is a dramatic growth in the numbers of the working poor. At the same time, there has been a...

Initiate Deficits to Strengthen Public Finances: The Role of Private Pensions

By Ales Berk, Dragan Jovanovic & Joze Sambt In this paper we use our comprehensive pension system model calibrated to the real demographic, employment and retirement data, measure transition costs of implementing mandatory private second-pillar into the pension landscape and consider fiscal sustainability of pension system. We report sensitivity to the most relevant parameters both within a second-pillar and a pay-as-you-go, and argue that fiscal sustainability and improved (higher) accrual rates are not incompatible policy goals if only pension reform...

Behavioural Science in Law & Policy: Evidence, Ethics, & Expertise

By Newcastle University Behavioural economics, and behavioural science more generally, has become an increasingly salient aspect of modern policy debates. Despite the current enthusiasm amongst governments and policy-makers for behavioural approaches, there are potential problems with the use of the behavioural sciences to formulate public policy, many of which remain underexplored. This workshop brought together papers from a range of different disciplinary, regulatory, and practical perspectives to examine the potential benefits and pitfalls of behavioural science as applied to policy. The workshop...

The Role of Social Security in Overall Retirement Resources: A Distributional Perspective

By Alice Henriques & John Sabelhaus During recent decades, the US employer-sponsored retirement system has undergone a major shift from primarily defined benefit (DB)-type plans to primarily defined contribution (DC)-type plans. Furthermore, in the past decade, participation in employer retirement plans has fallen, particularly for younger and lower-income families. In light of this, there is growing concern that wealth accumulation through employer-provided pension plans is falling short, especially for the bottom half of the income distribution. However, focusing only on...

Regulation and Supervision of Pension Funds in India

By S. P. Subedar Power Point Presentation. Occupational pension funds need to be regulated and supervised. A statutory role in the form of Scheme Actuary needs to be created for DB pensions.Adequate information need to be provided annually to the DC pension subscribers about the likely accumulation and pension pay out on their retirement. These measures would ensure that all pension issues are addressed in a holistic manner and cohesiveness is brought in regulation and supervision of pension business. (more…)