December 2021

Pension Reform and Labor Supply

By Andrew C. Johnston & Jonah Rockoff As unfunded pension liabilities mount, governments experiment with ways to curb the costs of pensions. We examine the effect of one such reform on the retention and productivity of public-sector workers. The reform reduced pension annuities and increased penalties for early retirement, projected to save 8 percent of revenues. We use the fact that the reform only applied to workers below age and experience cutoffs to estimate the effect of the reform. We...

The impact of non-contributory cash transfers on poverty in Latin America

By Simone Cecchini, Pablo Villatoro & Xavier Mancero This article assesses the impact of conditional cash transfers, social pensions and other non-contributory transfers on different indicators of poverty and extreme poverty in Latin America, based on an analysis of household surveys from 15 countries in the region between 2014 and 2017. It is found that in 2017, the combined effect of non-contributory social protection programmes reduced simple regional averages for poverty by 2.0 percentage points and for extreme poverty by...

México. Plantean que derechohabientes accedan a ahorro voluntario en caso de emergencia sanitaria o económica

México. Plantean que derechohabientes accedan a ahorro voluntario en caso de emergencia sanitaria o económica

El diputado Alejandro Carvajal Hidalgo (Morena) propuso una reforma a la Ley de los Sistemas de Ahorro para el Retiro, con el objetivo de que los derechohabientes puedan acceder a los recursos acumulados en su ahorro voluntario o ahorro complementario para el retiro en caso de emergencia sanitaria o económica. Leer también México. Siempre sí: Tope a Afores entrará en vigor en 2022 En un comunicado, detalló que en caso de emergencia sanitaria declarada por el Consejo de Salubridad General o...

US. 3 NYC pension funds divest $3 billion from fossil fuels

Three of five pension funds in the $266.7 billion New York City Retirement Systems have divested about $3 billion in fossil fuel company holdings, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer announced Wednesday. The divestment "is proof positive that environmental and fiscal responsibility go hand-in-hand," Mr. Stringer, the fiduciary of the five pension funds in the city system, said in a news release. "New York City is leading the way toward a clean, green and sustainable economy, and the impacts of...

Aging Germany Is Running Out of Workers, Putting Europe’s Largest Economy at Risk

Germany has long been ahead of the curve as a source of technical innovation and manufacturing. Now it is leading much of the developed world toward a demographic cliff edge that could put a damper on Europe’s largest economy, raising pressure on its pension system and pushing inflation higher for years to come. Economists forecast that Germany’s workforce could peak as soon as 2023 and then shrink by up to five million people by the end of the decade. While...

Leveraging identification to extend social insurance to the informal sector

Leveraging identification to extend social insurance to the informal sector

Providing pensions and other forms of social insurance to people requires keeping track of large numbers of individuals over long periods of time. There is little margin for error. Allocating contributions of one individual to the pension of another not only affects individual fates. It also risks undermining the trust in the entire system and without trust social insurance cannot work. In the formal economy with contractual employer-employee relationships, the identification of an individual over a long period can (at...

Puerto Rico oversight board sues to stop new pension benefits

The Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico said it filed a lawsuit to stop the local government from offering public workers billions in new retirement benefits that it says will undermine the island's long-sought plan to restructure its debt. In a statement issued Monday, the board said it had filed the suit in Puerto Rico District Court to stop the pension measures — known as Act 80, Act 81, and Act 82 — because they are being pushed...

Puerto Rico. La Junta de Control Fiscal demanda al gobierno para anular leyes de retiro

Puerto Rico. La Junta de Control Fiscal demanda al gobierno para anular leyes de retiro

La implementación de las leyes 80, 81 y 82 fue puesta en jaque ayer por la Junta de Control Fiscal (JCF) con la presentación de una demanda en la corte de Título III contra el gobierno de Puerto Rico. Leer también Puerto Rico. La Junta de Control Fiscal lleva al tribunal federal su oposición a la Ley de retiro digno para policías El recurso tiene el propósito de que el gobierno desista de poner en vigor las leyes por entender que...

Chile. Ministerio de Hacienda ingresa Pensión Garantizada Universal al Congreso

El Ministerio de Hacienda informa que ingresó el proyecto que crea una Pensión Garantizada Universal al Congreso, en forma de indicación la Ley Corta de Pensiones, que se encuentra en la Comisión de Hacienda de la Cámara de Diputados. La iniciativa busca entregar un aporte de hasta $185.000 para todos los mayores de 65 años que se encuentren en el 90% de menores recursos, estén pensionados o no, beneficiando a 2,4 millones de personas. Los requisitos para acceder al beneficio serán...

UK. Workplace pensions bounce back after Covid-19 effects

On the go: Workplace pension contributions grew by more than 15 per cent in the second quarter of 2021, when compared with the previous year, due to contribution levels recovering after the pandemic, according to the Office for National Statistics. The ONS’s latest quarterly survey on funded occupational pension schemes in the UK, published on Tuesday, showed that contributions in private sector employee and employer defined contribution schemes grew by 19 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively, in Q2...