August 2018

11Aug

The Power of Working Longer

By Gila Bronshtein This paper compares the relative strengths of working longer vs. saving more in terms of increasing a household’s affordable, sustainable standard of living in retirement. Both stylized households and actual households from the Health and Retirement Study are examined. We assume that workers commence Social Security benefits when they retire. The basic result is that delaying retirement by 3-6 months has the same impact on the retirement standard of living as saving an additional one-percentage point of...

August 11, 2018
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, Savings, Slider-Left, ,
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08Aug

Annuity Puzzle: how products are designed matters

By Eduardo Rodríguez Montemayor PPI’s Editorial Board editorial@pensionpolicy.net Getting an annuity with our savings pot at the time of retirement is the only contract that guarantees periodic pension payments for life. Yet, few people do it when offered to option to do so. What explains this puzzle? An annuity is a financial contract that pays out a periodic amount for as long as the annuitant is alive, in exchange for an initial premium. Defined-contribution (DC) pension schemes usually make it voluntary to choose whether to buy an...

August 8, 2018
Articles, Investing, Labor Market, OP Ed, Pension design, PPI’s original Op-Eds, Slider-Left, , , ,
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July 2018

30Jul

Well-Appreciated but (Too) Difficult Pensions Choices? Insights from the Swedish Premium Pension System

By Monika Böhnke (Maastricht University - Department of Marketing), Elisabeth Brüggen (Maastricht University) & Thomas Post (Maastricht University - School of Business and Economics - Department of Finance; Netspar) We analyze experiences of savers in a DC pension scheme from Sweden – a country that was among the first to launch choice-based funded individual pension accounts. Based on a survey among 2,646 savers, we find that the average saver feels unknowledgeable about the scheme and experiences choice overload. Pension savers...

July 30, 2018
Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, Slider-Left
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May 2018

21May

Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World: Working Longer

By Courtney Coile (Wellesley College; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)), Kevin S. Milligan (University of British Columbia (UBC) - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)) & David A. Wise (National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Harvard University - Harvard Kennedy School (HKS)) This is the introduction and summary to the eighth phase of an ongoing project on Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World. This project, which compares the experiences of a dozen developed countries,...

May 21, 2018
Articles, Labor Market, Regulation, Slider-Left, , ,
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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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01Apr

How a New Bond Can Greatly Improve Retirement Security

By Adam Kobor (New York University (NYU)) & Arun Muralidhar (AlphaEngine Global Investment Solutions; George Washington University) There is a growing retirement crisis and most of the focus has been on the fact that individuals are not saving enough for retirement, may not have access to pension schemes, or are financially illiterate. However, the bigger issue might be that the assets/financial products available to investors, including those that offer legal protection to plan sponsors, may not be appropriate for the typical...

April 1, 2018
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March 2018

14Mar

The troubled state of pension systems in Latin America

By Augusto de la Torre and Heinz P. Rudolph A quarter of a century since Chilean-style pension reforms swept Latin America, the state of the region’s pension systems is worrisome. Old and new problems are increasingly rearing their ugly heads, some setting off serious alarms, all posing thorny political and technical challenges. Pension issues have therefore once again taken center stage in the policy debate. This paper provides a bird’s eye view of the quilt-like landscape of contributory pensions systems...

March 14, 2018
Articles, Regulation, Slider-Left, System Sustainability, ,
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February 2018

26Feb

Exploring the Risks and Consequences of Elder Fraud Victimization: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study

By Marguerite DeLiema (Stanford University - Stanford Center on Longevity), Martha Deevy (Stanford University - Stanford Center on Longevity), Annamaria Lusardi (George Washington University - Department of Accountancy; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)) & Olivia S. Mitchell (University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)) This is the first study to use longitudinal data to explore both the antecedents and consequences of fraud victimization in the older population. Because older persons are close to...

February 26, 2018
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, Slider-Left,
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12Feb

The Effect of Income on Subjective Well-Being in Later Life: A Case Study of a Government Pension in South Korea

By Erin Hye-Won Kim (National University of Singapore (NUS) - Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy) Objectives. Despite keen interest among scholars and policy makers, little is known about whether income affects subjective well-being (SWB) in later life, a notoriously difficult question to answer, given the empirical challenge of isolating the effect of income from correlated influences and the possibility of reverse causality. This paper examines the effects of the 2008 introduction of the Basic Old-Age Pension, a noncontributory...

February 12, 2018
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05Feb

Long-Run Saving Dynamics: Evidence from Unexpected Inheritances

By Jeppe Druedahl (University of Copenhagen - Department of Economics) & Alessandro Martinello (Lund University - Department of Economics; Danish National Institute of Social Research (SFI)) We exploit inheritance episodes to provide novel causal evidence on long-run saving dynamics. For identification, we combine a panel of administrative wealth reports with the unexpected timing of sudden parental deaths. After inheritance, net worth converges towards the path established before parental death, and convergence is faster for liquid assets. Using a generalized structural...

February 5, 2018
Aging, Articles, Savings, Slider-Left,
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