March 2018

Social Security, Medicare and Government Pensions: Get the Most Out of Your Retirement and Medical Benefits

By Joseph Matthews Your complete guide to Social Security retirement and medical benefits Social Security, Medicare, SSI and more explained in this all-in-one resource that gets you the most out of your retirement benefits.  Learn all about: Social Security benefits (including new rules on spousal and dependents benefits) Medicare & Medicaid veterans, FERS, and CSRS benefits Completely updated for 2018. Read more HERE

Evaluating Retirement Strategies: A Utility-Based Approach

By Javier Estrada (IESE Business School) & Mark Kritzman (Windham Capital Management) Retirees need to make two critical financial decisions, namely, the withdrawal rate and the asset allocation of their portfolios. We propose a methodology that retirees, and particularly advisors, could use to make these decisions in an optimal way. We introduce a new variable, the coverage ratio, and a theoretical approach, based on utility. Our approach can be used to make optimal decisions during both the accumulation and the...

Causes and Characteristics of Population Aging

By Kyounghoon Park (The Bank of Korea) Korea’s level of population aging remains lower than the OECD average. However, the pace of population aging in Korea is faster than that of many other member countries, as its total fertility rate is the lowest among OECD countries while its life expectancy exceeds the OECD average. Using panel data from OECD member countries, this paper divides the common causes of population aging in OECD countries into declining fertility rate and increasing life...

Disclosure of costs, charges and investments in DC occupational pensions

UK Department for Work and Pensions This paper forms the Government’s response to a consultation on the draft Occupational Pension Schemes (Administration and Disclosure) (Amendment) Regulations 2018, which ran from the 26 October 2017 to 7 December 2017. The draft Regulations were designed to: introduce requirements for certain occupational schemes offering money purchase benefits to publish charge and transaction cost information, disclose this to members and others, and tell members where to find it; and introduce requirements for the same...

Growing Pension Deficits and the Expenditure Decisions of UK Companies

By Philip Bunn (Bank of England), Paul Mizen (University of Nottingham; Bank of England; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)) & Pawel Smietanka (Bank of England) Large deficits have opened up on defined benefit pension schemes in the United Kingdom since 2007, and at the same time investment expenditure has been subdued; this is a common phenomenon in other countries too. We use privileged access to a unique new data set from The Pensions Regulator and two identification schemes to...

How Persistent Low Expected Returns Alter Optimal Life Cycle Saving, Investment, and Retirement Behavior

By Vanya Horneff, Raimond Maurer & Olivia S. Mitchell This paper explores how an environment of persistent low returns influences saving, investing, and retirement behaviors, as compared to what in the past had been thought of as more “normal” financial conditions. Our calibrated lifecycle dynamic model with realistic tax, minimum distribution, and Social Security benefit rules produces results that agree with observed saving, work, and claiming age behavior of U.S. households. In particular, our model generates a large peak at...

February 2018

Building Evidence for Active Ageing Policies: Active Ageing Index and its Potential

By Asghar Zaidi,‎ Sarah Harper,‎ Kenneth Howse,‎ Giovanni Lamura,‎ Jolanta Perek-Bialas  This book provides multinational evidence on active and healthy ageing. It generates authoritative new knowledge for mutual learning and policymaking in addressing challenges linked with population ageing. The authors discuss how to achieve better active ageing outcomes through appropriate policies including addressing life course determinants of active and healthy ageing. The chapters are distinctive in their focus on quantitative analysis of active and healthy ageing based on a first-of-its-kind composite measure, the Active Ageing...

Financial Economics Principles Applied to Public Pension Plans

By Edward Bartholomew (Independent), Jeremy Gold (Jeremy Gold Pensions), David G. Pitts (Independent) & Larry Pollack (Independent) Working from basic principles of economics, financial economics, and public finance, we develop implications for the financial management of public pension plans. We address the measurement of plan liabilities and cost, funding, investment of plan assets, financial reporting, benefit design and risk sharing. Our analysis seeks to maximize efficiency and preserve intergenerational equity. We conclude that full funding based on default-free discount rates...

The Impact of Life-Course Developments on Pensions in the Ndc Systems in Poland, Italy and Sweden and Point System in Germany

By Agnieszka Chłoń-Domińczak (Warsaw School of Economics), Marek Góra (Warsaw School of Economics (SGH); IZA Institute of Labor Economics), Irena Kotowska (Warsaw School of Economics), Iga Magda (Warsaw School of Economics), Anna Ruzik-Sierdzińska (Warsaw School of Economics) & Pawel Strzelecki (National Bank of Poland; Warsaw School of Economics) Old-age pensions in the NDC systems reflect the accumulated lifetime labour income. Interrupted careers and differences in the employment rates, particularly between men and women will have a significant impact on...

Political Viability of Intergenerational Transfers. An Empirical Application

By Gianko Michailidis (University of Barcelona) & Concepcio Patxot (University of Barcelona - Department of Economic Theory) Public intergenerational transfers (IGTs) may arise because of the failure of private arrangements to provide optimal economic resources for the young and the old. We examine the political sustainability of the system of public IGTs by asking what the outcome would be if the decision per se to reallocate economic resources between generations was put to the vote. By exploiting the particular nature...