September 2024

Climate, housing and pensions – the new partnership shaping the future of retirement

Pensions for Purpose and Independent Governance Group (IGG) announces IGG’s new role as a Community Partner with Pensions for Purpose.} The partnership furthers IGG’s ongoing commitment to address the challenges the pensions industry faces through systemic risks such as climate change, biodiversity loss and income inequality. This association and the wider Pensions for Purpose Community has been set up to accelerate the sharing of knowledge and investment in assets that benefit people and the planet. This is the first linking...

Working till your 70s — Japan’s prospective gift to the world

Japanese people are living longer, but with a struggling pension system and the highest inflation in decades, more are delaying retirement until their 70s or later to make ends meet. Michie Hino is one of them. She works at an elderly care home east of Tokyo, where she spends eight hours a day cleaning the facility and washing laundry even though she’s 77 years old herself. She’s part of the workforce supporting Japan’s growing ranks of aged and infirm. Her monthly...

August 2024

Rethinking Social Insurance for Self-Employed and Gig Workers

When designing a product, understanding the customers’ needs and preferences is essential. A case in point of the importance of tailoring product designs to customers is the “sachet revolution” in India. In the 1970s and 80s, some brands that sold daily essential products such as shampoos sought to target a large customer base who, at the time, could not afford these products: lower-income households and the rural market. To cater to the needs of low-income and rural households, these...

Improving Pension Information: Experimental Evidence on Learning Using Online Resources

By Denise Laroze, Gabriela Fajardo, Charles Noussair, Ximena Quintanilla, Paulina Granados, Pedro Vallette, Mauricio López-Tapia Deciding what to do with one's pension funds is a high-stakes, one-shot decision. Retirement schemes are often described in technical jargon that few people understand. We consider whether the learning process can be eased by providing information in video format (vs. the standard textual format) and by changes to the user interface of the websites on which individuals learn about their pension options. The results...

A Two-Generation Model with Altruism for Reverse Mortgage Demand

By Yunxiao Wang, Katja Hanewald, Zilin (Scott) Shao, Hazel Bateman Reverse mortgage markets remain relatively small internationally, with one frequently cited reason being bequest motives. We study the role of reverse mortgages in intergenerational financial planning as a tool for families to bring forward bequests. We develop a new two-generation lifecycle model with parental altruism to compare the welfare gains of bequests and early bequests (inter vivos gifts) for homeowning parents and adult children seeking to purchase their first home....

Collective Defined Contribution (CDC) Schemes: Assessing Capacity for Alternative Investments

By Aili Chen, CFA As pension systems adapt to changing economics and demographics, there is growing interest in collective defined contribution (CDC) schemes as they offer a different approach to retirement savings compared to defined benefit (DB) schemes. Instead of providing a guaranteed pension payment, CDC schemes provide workers with a pot of money to use in retirement, alleviating corporate sponsors of the responsibility and cost associated with providing lifetime guaranteed benefit payments. The size of the pension pot can...

Improving Pension Information: Experimental Evidence on Learning Using Online Resources

By Denise Laroze, Gabriela Fajardo, Charles Noussair, Ximena Quintanilla, Paulina Granados, Pedro Valette & Mauricio López-Tapia Deciding what to do with one's pension funds is a high-stakes, one-shot decision. Retirement schemes are often described in technical jargon that few people understand. We consider whether the learning process can be eased by providing information in video format (vs. the standard textual format) and by changes to the user interface of the websites on which individuals learn about their pension options. The...

A Two-Generation Model with Altruism for Reverse Mortgage Demand

By Yunxiao Wang, Katja Hanewald, Zilin (Scott) Shao & Hazel Bateman Reverse mortgage markets remain relatively small internationally, with one frequently cited reason being bequest motives. We study the role of reverse mortgages in intergenerational financial planning as a tool for families to bring forward bequests. We develop a new two-generation lifecycle model with parental altruism to compare the welfare gains of bequests and early bequests (inter vivos gifts) for homeowning parents and adult children seeking to purchase their first...

Collective Defined Contribution (CDC) Schemes: Assessing Capacity for Alternative Investments

By Aili Chen, CFA  As pension systems adapt to changing economics and demographics, there is growing interest in collective defined contribution (CDC) schemes as they offer a different approach to retirement savings compared to defined benefit (DB) schemes. Instead of providing a guaranteed pension payment, CDC schemes provide workers with a pot of money to use in retirement, alleviating corporate sponsors of the responsibility and cost associated with providing lifetime guaranteed benefit payments. The size of the pension pot can...