February 2017

23Feb

Pensions, Retirement, and the Disutility of Labor: Bunching in Brazil

By Benjamin Thompson (University of Michigan) Abstract:      Elderly workers in developing countries face certain frictions, such as credit constraints, in their retirement decisions that may not be as common among their counterparts in the developed world, and these concerns may lead workers to work more or less than their preferred number of years. In this study, I firstly use regression discontinuity methods to show that a large fraction of urban male heads of households in Brazil (roughly 45%)...

February 23, 2017
Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, ,
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04Feb

Workers' Knowledge of their Pension Coverage: A Reevaluation

By Martha Starr-McCluer & Annika Sundén Because employer-provided pensions represent an important source of income during retirement, accurate information on pension coverage would seem to be crucial for making sound decisions on retirement timing, saving and portfolio allocation. However, previous research suggests that workers’ knowledge of their pension provisions is often incomplete or incorrect. This paper re-examines workers’ knowledge of their pension coverage, using matched employer-employee data from the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances. We find that, while...

February 4, 2017
Aging, Articles, Labor Market,
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04Feb

Workers’ Knowledge of their Pension Coverage: A Reevaluation

By Martha Starr-McCluer & Annika Sundén Because employer-provided pensions represent an important source of income during retirement, accurate information on pension coverage would seem to be crucial for making sound decisions on retirement timing, saving and portfolio allocation. However, previous research suggests that workers’ knowledge of their pension provisions is often incomplete or incorrect. This paper re-examines workers’ knowledge of their pension coverage, using matched employer-employee data from the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances. We find that, while...

February 4, 2017
Aging, Articles, Labor Market,
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04Feb

Pension Coverage in Latin America: trends and determination

By Rafael Rofman & Maria Laura Oliveri This document presents an analysis of pension coverage trends in Latin America for the past decades. Its preparation involved the collection, revision, and processing of household surveys in over 18 countries in the region, spanning a period of almost 40 years in some cases. The main goal of this document is to offer comparable data on pension coverage among the economically active population and the elderly, considering the relevance of several demographic, social,...

February 4, 2017
Articles, Corporate Governance, Labor Market
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04Feb

International patterns of pension provision II: a worldwide overview of facts and figures

By Montserrat Pallares Miralles, Carolina Romero & Edward Whitehouse This paper presents and explains cross country data for mandatory publicly and privately managed pension systems around the world. This report is organized into three parts corresponding to three broad types of indicators. These indicators relate to: (i) the relevant contextual factors referred to here as environment; (ii) pension system design parameters; and (iii) indicators of performance. Part one of the report provides some information on the environment in which the...

February 4, 2017
Articles, Pension design, Regulation
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04Feb

Is Asia Prepared for an Aging Population?

By Peter Heller Many Asian countries (such as China, Singapore, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, and the Philippines) will experience a significant aging of their populations during the next several decades. This paper explores how these aging Asian countries are addressing and anticipating the challenges of an aging society. It suggests that Asia's preparedness for an aging population is decidedly mixed. While growth policies have been successful, much work is still needed in many countries to establish an adequate and...

February 4, 2017
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, ,
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04Feb

Taxing Kenya’s M-Pesa Picks the Pockets of the Poor

By Liliana Rojas-Suarez Kenya has instituted a new tax that affects users of M-Pesa -- a widely popular phone-based money transfer service used by more than half of Kenya’s adult population. The new 10 percent excise duty on fees charged for money transfer services applies to mobile phone providers, banks, and other money transfer agencies. Operated by Safaricom, the largest mobile network operator in Kenya, M-Pesa accounts for the largest share of users of money transfer services. Users of M-Pesa...

February 4, 2017
Adequacy, Articles,
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04Feb

The Role of Social Security in Overall Retirement Resources: A Distributional Perspective

By Alice Henriques & John Sabelhaus During recent decades, the US employer-sponsored retirement system has undergone a major shift from primarily defined benefit (DB)-type plans to primarily defined contribution (DC)-type plans. Furthermore, in the past decade, participation in employer retirement plans has fallen, particularly for younger and lower-income families. In light of this, there is growing concern that wealth accumulation through employer-provided pension plans is falling short, especially for the bottom half of the income distribution. However, focusing only on...

February 4, 2017
Articles, Pension design, Regulation, , ,
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04Feb

Non-Contributory Pensions Number-Gender Effects on Poverty and Household Decisions

By Miguel Ángel Borrella, Mariano Bosch & Marcello Sartarelli Non-contributory pensions, designed to reduce old-age poverty particularly in countries with low contributory coverage, may induce a variety of household behavioural responses. This paper tests whether they vary with beneficiaries number and gender in Bolivia, one of the countries with the lowest contributory coverage worldwide. Taking advantage of a discontinuity in eligibility at age 60 in the Renta Dignidad pension, we estimate these effects by using a bi-dimensional regression discontinuity design,...

February 4, 2017
Articles, Pension design, Savings, , ,
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04Feb

How Should the Adequacy of Pension Coverage Be Balanced Against Financial Sustainability?

By Krzysztof Hagemejer & John Woodall In recent decades many countries have “reformed” their contributory pension schemes, generally strengthening the links between benefit entitlements and the contributions paid over members’ working lifetimes, but primarily seeking to (re)balance them financially, in the face of strains arising from unfavourable labour market or demographic conditions. The result has been reduced benefit entitlements and levels of coverage, however assessed. The impact has been felt, particularly, by those with shorter, broken careers (due for example...

February 4, 2017
Adequacy, Articles, System Sustainability, ,
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