November 2017

12Nov

Alternative Measures of Non-Cognitive Skills and Their Effect on Retirement Preparation and Financial Capability

By Gema Zamarro (University of Arkansas) Social science, more than ever, is drawing upon the insights of personality psychology. Though researchers now know that non-cognitive skills and personality traits, such as conscientiousness, grit, self-control, or a growth mindset could be important for life outcomes, they struggle to find reliable measures of these skills. Self-reports are often used for analysis but these measures have been found to be affected by important biases. We study the validity of innovative more robust measures...

November 12, 2017
Articles, Investing, Pension design, Slider-Left, System Sustainability,
Read more...

October 2017

27Oct

Retirement Age Effects of Pension and Salary Reforms: Evidence from Wisconsin Teachers

By Barbara Biasi (Princeton University) Public sector employees in the US receive a large part of their lifetime compensation in the form of defined benefit pensions, financed in part with employees’ salary contributions. Combined with different wage structures, these pension plans can affect workers’ decisions on the optimal retirement age and, in turn, the composition of the workforce. In this paper I study the retirement effects of a reform which increased all Wisconsin teachers’ contribution to the pension fund, and...

October 27, 2017
Articles, Funding, Regulation, Slider-Left, System Sustainability, , , ,
Read more...
26Oct

Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index 2017

By Yianni Katiforis As the social and economic effects of population ageing grow, nations’ capacities to effectively provide financial security in retirement become progressively more critical. A public measure of this readiness, the MMGPI’s global profile has also increased steadily since its inception in 2009. This year, the 9th edition of the report assessed the retirement income systems of 30 nations across six continents, covering more than half of the global population. Despite retaining its third-place ranking behind Denmark and The Netherlands,...

October 26, 2017
Adequacy, Books, Funding, Regulation, System Sustainability
Read more...
16Oct

A Survey of Behavioral Finance

By Nicholas Barberis, Richard Thaler Behavioral finance argues that some financial phenomena can plausibly be understood using models in which some agents are not fully rational. The field has two building blocks: limits to arbitrage, which argues that it can be difficult for rational traders to undo the dislocations caused by less rational traders; and psychology, which catalogues the kinds of deviations from full rationality we might expect to see. We discuss these two topics, and then present a number...

October 16, 2017
Articles, Labor Market, Slider-Left, System Sustainability,
Read more...
09Oct

Saving the Next Billion from Old Age Poverty. Global Lessons for Local Action

This Book Project is the first of a series of initiatives by pinBox to jumpstart a global dialogue and collaborative action on pension inclusion across Asia, Africa and Latin America. The Book presents the policy outlook, past efforts and planned interventions by several developing countries as well as thematic chapters on the key principles and issues in design and implementation of inclusive pension arrangements. This book was realeased on October 12 on the pinBox Digital Micro-Pension Inclusion Roundtable 2017 For more information...

October 9, 2017
Adequacy, Aging, Articles, Books, Corporate Governance, Funding, Investing, Labor Market, Management, News, Pension design, Regulation, Savings, Slider, Supervision, System Sustainability
Read more...
08Oct

Is There a Retirement Crisis? Examining Retirement Planning in the Household and Government Sectors

By Andrew G. Biggs (American Enterprise Institute) In response to a widespread perception that households are undersaving for retirement, policymakers have proposed expanding Social Security and establishing supplementary retirement saving plans run by state governments. But these proposals take place against a background of record-high unfunded liabilities for government-run retirement programs. If government entities have either financial or political difficulty funding their existing obligations to retirees, shifting greater retirement provision from households to government could potentially worsen existing shortfalls in...

October 8, 2017
Articles, Funding, Savings, System Sustainability, ,
Read more...

September 2017

22Sep

Using Behavioral Science to Increase Retirement Savings

By Andrew Fertig, Jaclyn Lefkowitz & Alissa Fishbane We all deserve a dignified retirement, yet for many of us saving enough remains an obscure, unrealized goal. In an ideal world, planning for our retirement would begin with our first job, continue throughout our working years, and end in sufficient savings for a comfortable future. This pathway may be possible for the few among us with employer-provided pensions, where someone else handles all the planning and saving. Yet trends in the retirement...

September 22, 2017
Articles, Investing, Savings, Slider-Left, System Sustainability, , , , , ,
Read more...

August 2017

29Aug

Inmigracion y Sostenibilidad del Sistema de Pensiones En España

Por Carlos Borondo, Zen N Jim Nez-Ridruejo Ayuso, Carmen Lorenzo Lago Los procesos migratorios alteran sustancialmente los vinculos existentes entre las cotizaciones y las prestaciones en los sistemas publicos de pensiones. En el caso de Espana la evolucion demografica y del mercado de trabajo se han visto profundamente modificados por la presencia de un intenso flujo de inmigrantes, que han influido de un modo manifiesto sobre el balance y la capacidad del sistema de pensiones publicas de jubilacion, mejorando las...

August 29, 2017
Books, Labor Market, Regulation, System Sustainability, ,
Read more...
08Aug

A Lost Generation but Renewed Hope: Oregon's Pension Crisis and the Road to Reform

By Scott Andrew Shepard (Independent) Like a number of other states, Oregon has been hampered in its pension reform efforts since 1996 by its state supreme court’s embrace of the “California Rule,” a doctrine arising, in Oregon’s case, from a misunderstanding of federal Contract Clause precedent. Under the misreading, states such as Oregon have been restricted from reducing pension benefits for government employees once they have been hired, even for work that lies in the future and may not be...

August 8, 2017
Articles, Regulation, Slider-Left, Supervision, System Sustainability,
Read more...
08Aug

A Lost Generation but Renewed Hope: Oregon’s Pension Crisis and the Road to Reform

By Scott Andrew Shepard (Independent) Like a number of other states, Oregon has been hampered in its pension reform efforts since 1996 by its state supreme court’s embrace of the “California Rule,” a doctrine arising, in Oregon’s case, from a misunderstanding of federal Contract Clause precedent. Under the misreading, states such as Oregon have been restricted from reducing pension benefits for government employees once they have been hired, even for work that lies in the future and may not be...

August 8, 2017
Articles, Regulation, Slider-Left, Supervision, System Sustainability,
Read more...