June 2018

Towards an Equitable and Sustainable Points System. A Proposal for Pension Reform in Belgium

By Erik Schokkaert (Catholic University of Leuven (KUL)), Pierre Devolder (Catholic University of Louvain), Jean Hindriks (University of London - School of Economics and Finance) & Frank Vandenbroucke (University of Amsterdam) We describe the points system as proposed by the Belgian Commission for Pension Reform 2020–2040. Intragenerational equity can be realised through the allocation of points within a cohort. The intergenerational distribution is determined by fixing the value of a point for the newly retired and a sustainability parameter for...

Flexible or Mandatory Retirement? Welfare Implications of Retirement Policies for a Population With Heterogeneous Health Conditions

By Zhenhua Feng (Tsinghua University - Institute of Economics), Jaimie W. Lien (The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) - Department of Decision Sciences & Managerial Economics) & Jie Zheng (Tsinghua University - School of Economics & Management) A flexible retirement policy has often been proposed as a solution to address the social dilemma of individuals in the population having different desired retirement ages. We analyze such a policy in an overlapping generations general equilibrium framework, where individuals differ in...

Age Discrimination in European Employment Law: Problems and Potential Reforms

By Dáire McCormack-George (School of Law at Trinity College, Dublin) Irish employment equality law is driven by European Union policy. However, the law on age discrimination in employment is currently in a deeply worrying state. In this essay, I will make two arguments in relation to the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the lawfulness of mandatory retirement ages. First, I will argue that the case law of the Court is, in the main,...

May 2018

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....

Long-Run Trends in the Economic Activity of Older People in the UK

By James W. Banks (Institute for Fiscal Studies; University of Manchester), Carl Emmerson (Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)) & Gemma Tetlow (Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)) We document employment rates of older men and women in the UK over the last forty years. In both cases growth in employment since the mid 1990s has been stronger than for younger age groups. On average, older men are still less likely to be in work than they were in the mid 1970s...

Universal Social Protection Floors: Costing Estimates and Affordability in 57 Lower Income Countries

By Isabel Ortiz (United Nations - International Labour Organization (ILO); Initiative for Policy Dialogue), Fabio Duran (International Labour Organization (ILO)), Karuna Pal (International Labour Organization (ILO)), Christina Behrendt (International Labour Office) & Andres Acuña-Ulate (International Labour Organization (ILO)) This paper presents the results of costing universal social protection floors in 34 lower middle-income, and 23 low-income countries, consisting of: (i) allowances for all children and all orphans; (ii) maternity benefits for all women with newborns; (iii) benefits for all persons...

Golden Handcuffs and Corporate Innovation: Evidence from Defined Benefit Pension Plans

By Huu Nhan Duong (Monash University - Department of Banking and Finance; Financial Research Network (FIRN)), Bin Qiu (Missouri Western State University, Craig School of Business) & S. Ghon Rhee (University of Hawaii - Shidler College of Business; University of Hawaii - Department of Financial Economics and Institutions) This study takes advantage of sharply nonlinear funding rules for tax-qualified defined benefit (DB) plans to identify the effects of employees’ deferred compensation on corporate innovation. We find that firms with higher...

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,...

Retirement Really is Different

By Jeremy Cooper (Challenger Limited), Aaron Minney (Challenger Limited) & Amara Haqqani (Challenger Limited) Australia’s retirees are living longer, saving more and becoming increasingly self-reliant. Superannuation is moving from supplementing the age pension to substituting it for an increasing proportion of retirees, with only 42% of over-65s on a full age pension. This is forecast to decrease as super increasingly reduces the need for government assistance. Australia's super system is more mature than most people realise, with typical household superwealth...

Tax Aspect of the Mobility of Individuals and Companies within the EU

By Carlo Garbarino (Bocconi University - Department of Law) Migration has become an increasingly important phenomenon for societies, especially given its highly controversial political dimension. The complexity of the migrant integration process and its many varieties present challenges to policymakers who need high-quality information on which to base decisions. Nowhere is this necessity more pressing than in the development of relevant tax rules that meet the basic requirements of efficiency and equity. Moreover, the ascent of the so-called emerging economies...