September 2019

03Sep

South Korea. Stalled reform

After 10 months of discussion, a committee on national pension reform last week suggested three options, all of which fall short of ensuring the long-term sustainability of the pension scheme, now under increasing strain. Differences in views between labor and business representatives barred the panel formed in October under the Economic, Social and Labor Council from working out a single proposal. The first option calls for freezing the income replacement rate, which is set to be lowered to 40...

September 3, 2019
News, Slider, , ,
Read more...

August 2019
30Aug

The Palgrave Handbook of Unconventional Risk Transfer

By Maurizio Pompella, Nicos A Scordis This handbook examines the latest techniques and strategies that are used to unlock the risk transfer capacity of global financial and capital markets. Taking the financial crisis and global recession into account, it frames and contextualises non-traditional risk transfer tools created over the last 20 years. Featuring contributions from distinguished academics and professionals from around the world, this book covers in detail issues in securitization, financial risk management and innovation, structured finance...

August 30, 2019
Books, Investing, System Sustainability, ,
Read more...
23Aug

Bridging Public Pension Funds and Infrastructure Investing

By Clive Lipshitz, Ingo Walter Underfunding of U.S. public pensions is a chronic policy issue that has become more severe over time. Public pension obligations were estimated at $5.96 trillion at the end of 2017 supported by assets of $4.33 trillion — a shortfall of $1.63 trillion and a ‘funded-ratio’ of 72.6%. We consider the sustainability of public pension systems in the face of changing demographics and frequently inadequate funding and investment returns, and make the connection to the...

August 23, 2019
Articles, Investing, , ,
Read more...

June 2019

25Jun

Retirement Funding in South Africa 2019

The South African retirement funding sector, with assets in excess of R4.26-trillion, has the fifth highest assets-to-gross domestic product ratio in the world. However, less than 10% of retirement fund members are able to maintain their standard of living when they stop working and 41% of economically active South Africans have not made any provision for their retirement. Total membership of retirement funds rose from 16.6 million to 16.9 million in 2017, while total retirement fund contributions increased by...

June 25, 2019
Books, Reports, System Sustainability, ,
Read more...
14Jun

The Future of Public Employee Retirement Systems (Pensions Research Council) (English Edition)

By Gary Anderson, Olivia S. Mitchell People covered by public pensions are often the subject of 'pension envy:' that is, their benefits might seem more generous and their contributions lower than those offered by the private sector. Yet this book points out that such judgments are often inaccurate, since civil servants hold jobs with few counterparts in private industry, such as firefighters, police, judges, and teachers. Often these are riskier, dirtier, and demand more loyalty and discretion than would...

June 14, 2019
Books, System Sustainability, , , ,
Read more...
14Jun

The Effects of Pension-Related Policies on Household Spending

By Susana Párraga Rodríguez This paper estimates the impact of pension-related policies on household spending. The identification strategy exploits the deviation in pensioner income and expenditure caused by the introduction of a new pension system during the 1980s and 1990s in Spain and constructs a new narrative series of legislated pension changes. I present a variety of estimates, some of them imply that increases in the average pension have a roughly one-for-one effect on pensioner spending. The strongest effects...

June 14, 2019
Articles, System Sustainability, , ,
Read more...
14Jun

The Great Pension Debate: Finding Common Ground

By Robert L Brown, Stephen Eadie In the never-ending debate about finding an optimal pension model, many proponents start the discussion at extreme ends of the pension model paradigm. At one extreme is a traditional, fully guaranteed defined-benefit (DB) pension plan. In this plan, all of the risks are born by the plan sponsor given that plans are fully funded. While such plans are growing rare today that is the starting point for many in this debate. At the...

June 14, 2019
Adequacy, Articles, Pension design, Slider-Left, , ,
Read more...

May 2019

31May

50 States of Gray: An Innovative Solution to the Defined Contribution Retirement Crisis

By Arun Muralidhar Another retirement crisis is looming as one-third of private-sector, typically poor and unsophisticated workers, probably have little to no pension security. The fifty states have decided to enact reforms, but they are unwilling to assume any liability. Effective reform should ensure a target, guaranteed, inflation/standard-of-living-indexed retirement income through death. The book proposes a four-step reform process that articulates roles, responsibilities, and sequencing of steps to effectively address the looming retirement crisis. Current reform models potentially expose...

May 31, 2019
Books, Investing, Pension design, , ,
Read more...

April 2019

15Apr

Accounting for Pension Liabilities

By Katrin Brugger This book presents the US pension system and its development which is described by an overview of accounting standards and regulation boards and by comparing those to the International Financial Reporting Standard. The ideas of future pension plans and payments are underlined by an analysis of the demographic development in the US. Major pension plans are presented and information on: how participation is made, what kinds of benefits arise and who is eligible for those, is given....

April 15, 2019
Books, Books, System Sustainability, ,
Read more...
15Apr

Political Parties Do Matter In U.S. Cities… For Their Unfunded Pensions

By Christian Dippel Using data covering a wide range of municipal public-sector pension plans from 1962– 2014, I establish that unfunded pension benefits grow faster under Democratic-party mayors, using a regression discontinuity design (RDD) focusing on narrow mayoral races. Previous evidence shows that parties do not matter for a range of fiscal outcomes in U.S. cities, and suggests this is because Tiebout sorting imposes fiscal discipline. This paper shows that parties do matter for types of fiscal spending...

April 15, 2019
Articles, Sustainability, ,
Read more...