August 2018

06Aug

Price-Based Investment Strategies: How Research Discoveries Reinvented Technical Analysis

By Adam Zaremba &‎ Jacob "Koby" Shemer This compelling book examines the price-based revolution in investing, showing how research over recent decades has reinvented technical analysis. The authors discuss the major groups of price-based strategies, considering their theoretical motivation, individual and combined implementation, and back-tested results when applied to investment across country stock markets. Containing a comprehensive sample of performance data, taken from 24 major developed markets around the world and ranging over the last 25 years, the authors construct...

August 6, 2018
Books, Investing, Savings,
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06Aug

Self-Insurance Against Natural Disasters: The Use of Pension Funds in Pacific Island Countries

By Si Guo (International Monetary Fund (IMF)) & Futoshi Narita Pacific island countries are exposed to significant risks from natural disasters. As adisaster relief measure, Fiji allowed pre-retirement pension withdrawls in the wake ofCyclone Winston in 2016. Motivated by this policy action, we provide a normativeanalysis of the use of early pension withdrawals after disasters, by setting up a life-cyclesaving model with myopic households facing large natural disaster shocks. The modeldemonstrates the key trade-off between building up sufficient retirement savings...

August 6, 2018
Articles, Pension design, Savings,
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July 2018

30Jul

The Taxation of Pensions

By Robert Holzmann & John Piggott Theoretical and policy perspectives on the taxation of pension, viewed in an international context.Policy makers and academic researchers have been preoccupied in recent decades with the design of pension schemes and effective pension system reform. Relatively little attention has been given to the taxation of pensions and, more broadly, the provision of retirement income. In this book, experts from a range of countries explore the interconnection. Their contributions are especially timely, given recent demographic...

July 30, 2018
Books, Investing, Regulation, Savings, ,
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June 2018

25Jun

Saving Preferences After Retirement

By Jennifer Alonso-García (University of New South Wales (UNSW) - ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR)), Hazel Bateman (UNSW - School of Actuarial Studies, Centre for Pensions and Superannuation), Johan Bonekamp (Tilburg University - Department of Econometrics & Operations Research), Arthur van Soest (Tilburg University) & Ralph Stevens (CPB Netherlands Bureau of Economic Policy Analysis; CEPAR) We investigate the importance of rational and psychological motives for choosing a saving and consumption trajectory after retirement. Using an online...

June 25, 2018
Articles, Savings, ,
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10Jun

Inheritances and Inequality across and within Generations

By Andrew Hood & Robert Joyce Today’s elderly have much more wealth to bequeath than their predecessors, primarily as the result of rising homeownership rates and rising house prices. At the same time, today’s young adults will find it harder to accumulate wealth of their own than previous generations did, due to the sharp fall in homeownership, the dramatic decline of defined benefit pensions in the private sector and the stagnation in household incomes. Together, these trends mean inherited wealth is...

June 10, 2018
Aging, Books, Labor Market, Savings, ,
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May 2018

27May

Insight into the Earned Income Tax Credit and Tax-Advantaged Retirement Savings

By David Rogofsky (Government of the United States of America - Office of Retirement Policy), Richard Chard (Government of the United States of America - Office of Research, Evaluation and Statistics), Joanne Yoong (Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR)) Saving for retirement has traditionally been compared to a three-legged stool supported by Social Security benefits, workplace pensions, and personal savings. As the prevalence of defined benefit pensions has diminished in recent decades, the importance of personal savings has grown....

May 27, 2018
Articles, Savings,
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07May

Designing Pension Systems with Coherent Funded Private Pillars Including Issues for Notional Defined Contribution Schemes

By William Joseph Price (World Bank) This paper reviews the factors that should guide the design of private funded pensions to create a complete pension system alongside a notional defined contribution -- or public -- component. It argues that a mix of public and private pensions is the most effective option to deliver the best combination of pension outcomes. Pension design should start with a vision for five core outcomes: coverage, adequacy, sustainability, efficiency, and security. Thinking through these outcomes...

May 7, 2018
Articles, Pension design, Savings,
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April 2018

25Apr

Do pension participants want the freedom to choose or the freedom to snooze?

By Hendrik P. van Dalen and Kène Henkens Individual freedom of choice is a much heralded and cherished principle in democracies. Milton Friedman and colleagues at his alma mater, the University of Chicago, made this a cornerstone of their belief (Friedman & Friedman, 1990). The freedom of choice is the antidote to excessive government interference and an instrument which enables people to realize their goals and discipline agents and organizations. The call for freedom is getting louder as individualization of...

April 25, 2018
Articles, Investing, OP Ed, Pension design, PPI’s original Op-Eds, Savings, Slider-Left, ,
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23Apr

Do People Really Want Freedom of Choice? Assessing Preferences of Pension Fund Participants

Reforms in private pension plans across the world are opening up more options for pension participants to make choices to suit their preferences. Freedom of choice is however not a unidimensional concept as it is commonly perceived by policy makers. People can value both the freedom to choose as well as the freedom not to choose This observation can have far-reaching implications for pension policy design. By using a unique panel survey among Dutch employees we are able to...

April 23, 2018
Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, Savings
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23Apr

Implications of Behavioural Economics for Mandatory Individual Account Pension Systems

By Waldo Tapia & Juan Yermo In individual account pension systems, members bear the risks and consequences of their investment decisions. If participants behave as predicted by economic theory, such responsibility would be welfare enhancing as members would invest and hold a portfolio of financial assets with a risk-return combination consistent with their investment horizon, degree of risk aversion and the portfolio of other assets they hold, including their human capital and, where relevant, their home. Behavioural economists and empirical...

April 23, 2018
Investing, Labor Market, Savings,
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