February 2019

23Feb

Household Savings in Central Eastern and Southeastern Europe: How Do Poorer Households Save?

By Elisabeth Beckmann (Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB)) Based on a survey of households in 10 Central Eastern European and Western Balkan countries, this paper presents new and unique evidence on which households have savings and how they save. The paper shows that the percentage of savers is low, and savings are frequently informal. Formal savings are dominated by bank savings, and participation in contractual and capital market savings is very low in comparison to high-income countries. Poor households are significantly less...

February 23, 2019
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17Feb

Intergenerational Fairness: Will Our Kids Live Better than We Do

By Parisa Mahboubi (C.D. Howe Institute) While large government deficits and debt raise concerns regarding intergenerational fairness, their longterm intergenerational impacts can significantly differ, depending on demographic shifts and future economic policy. In particular, population aging in Canada has accelerated during the past decade due to declining fertility and improving life expectancy. This demographic transition poses new fiscal challenges since it dampens growth in government revenue while putting pressure on government spending, particularly in healthcare and public pensions. Generational accounting...

February 17, 2019
Adequacy, Articles, Savings, , ,
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15Feb

The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty

By Clayton M. Christensen,‎ Efosa Ojomo,‎ Karen Dillon Clayton M. Christensen, the author of such business classics as The Innovator’s Dilemma and the New York Times bestseller How Will You Measure Your Life, and co-authors Efosa Ojomo and Karen Dillon reveal why so many investments in economic development fail to generate sustainable prosperity, and offers a groundbreaking solution for true and lasting change.Global poverty is one of the world’s most vexing problems. For decades, we’ve assumed smart, well-intentioned people will eventually be able to change the...

February 15, 2019
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15Feb

Managing Uncertainty: The Search for a Golden Discount-Rate Rule for Defined-Benefit Pensions

By Stuart Landon (University of Alberta - Department of Economics), Constance E. Smith (University of Alberta - Department of Economics)This Commentary examines how the choice of a pension plan discount rate affects the tradeoff between the risk of holding insufficient assets to pay promised benefits and the cost of acquiring more assets. The choice of discount rate can have a dramatic effect on the value of a plan’s liabilities and, therefore, the assets needed to meet plan obligations. When...

February 15, 2019
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10Feb

Hustle and Gig: Struggling and Surviving in the Sharing Economy

By Alexandrea J. Ravenelle Choose your hours, choose your work, be your own boss, control your own income. Welcome to the sharing economy, a nebulous collection of online platforms and apps that promise to transcend capitalism. Supporters argue that the gig economy will reverse economic inequality, enhance worker rights, and bring entrepreneurship to the masses. But does it?In Hustle and Gig, Alexandrea J. Ravenelle shares the personal stories of nearly eighty predominantly millennial workers from Airbnb, Uber, TaskRabbit, and Kitchensurfing. Their...

February 10, 2019
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10Feb

Assessing Economic Resources in Retirement: The Role of Irregular Withdrawals from Tax-Advantaged Retirement Accounts

By Michael D. Hurd (RAND Corporation; State University of New York at Stony Brook - College of Arts and Science - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)) & Susann Rohwedder (RAND Corporation) Irregular withdrawals from IRAs and DC pensions are not included in standard measures of household income in the CPS or Health and Retirement Study. Yet, among retirees such withdrawals can supplement regular retirement income to finance consumption. It has been difficult to assess their importance,...

February 10, 2019
Adequacy, Aging, Articles, Savings, ,
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03Feb

Perspectives on Poverty in Europe

By Stephen P. Jenkins (London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Department of Social Policy and Administration; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA); University of Essex - Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER)) I address four topics: how our capacities to monitor poverty in Europe have improved substantially over recent decades; how progress on EU poverty reduction has been disappointing and why this has been; conceptual and measurement issues; and the future direction of EU-level anti-poverty...

February 3, 2019
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January 2019

27Jan

Work for a brighter future

From Global Commission On The Future Of Work New forces are transforming the world of work. The transitions involved call for decisive action. Countless opportunities lie ahead to improve the quality of working lives, expand choice, close the gender gap, reverse the damages wreaked by global inequality, and much more. Yet none of this will happen by itself. Without decisive action we will be heading into a world that widens existing inequalities and uncertainties. Technological advances – artificial intelligence, automation and...

January 27, 2019
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27Jan

Putting the Pension Back in 401(k) Retirement Plans: Optimal versus Default Longevity Income Annuities

By Vanya Horneff (Goethe University Frankfurt - Research Center SAFE), Raimond Maurer (Goethe University Frankfurt - Finance Department), Olivia S. Mitchell (University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)) A recent US Treasury regulation allowed deferred longevity income annuities to be included in pension plan menus as a default payout solution, yet little research has investigated whether more people should convert some of the $15 trillion they hold in employer-based defined contribution plans into lifelong income streams. We investigate this...

January 27, 2019
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19Jan

The Effect of Self-Employment on Income Inequality

By Stefan Schneck (Institut für Mittelstandsforschung (IfM) Bonn) It is well known that the self-employed are over-represented at the bottom as well as the top of the income distribution. This paper shifts the focus from the income situation of the self-employed to the distributive effects of a change in self-employment rates. With representative German data and unconditional quantile regression analysis we show that an increase in the proportion of self-employed individuals in the labor force increases income polarization by tearing...

January 19, 2019
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