May 2017

22May

Dangerous Flexibility – Retirement Reforms Reconsidered

By Axel H. Börsch-Supan, Tabea Bucher-Koenen, Vesile Kutlu-Koc & Nicolas Goll (Max Planck Society for the Advancement of the Sciences) Flexible retirement is supposed to increase labor supply of older workers without touching the third rail of pension politics, the highly unpopular increase of the retirement age. While this may have intuitive appeal, this paper shows that it might be wishful thinking. Economic theory tells us that flexible retirement policies can have a zero or positive effect on labor force...

May 22, 2017
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, , ,
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14May

Contributory Retirement Saving Plans: Differences across Earnings Groups and Implications for Retirement Security

By Irena Dushi, Howard Iams & Christopher R. Tamborini (US Social Security Administration) This article examines how savings in defined contribution (DC) retirement plans vary across the earnings distribution. Specifically, the authors investigate the extent of an earnings gradient in access to, participation in, and levels of contribution to DC plans. Using a nationally representative sample of Survey of Income and Program Participation respondents to data from their W-2 tax records, the authors find that DC plan access, participation, and...

May 14, 2017
Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, Savings, ,
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April 2017

10Apr

Closing Routes to Retirement: How Do People Respond?

By Johannes Geyer & Clara Welteke (German Institute for Economic Research) We present quasi-experimental evidence on the employment effects of an unprecedented large increase in the early retirement age (ERA). Raising the ERA has the potential to extend contribution periods and to reduce the number of pension beneficiaries at the same time, if employment exits are successfully delayed. However, workers may not be able to work longer or may choose other social support programs as exit routes from employment. We...

April 10, 2017
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, Regulation, ,
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10Apr

Time for Retirement ‘Selfies’?

By Robert C. Merton (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) & Arun Muralidhar (George Washington University) To address the looming retirement crisis, many governments are introducing new pension programmes tied to employment for uncovered workers (NEST in the UK and Secure Choice in some US states). These attempt to improve access to pensions, and continue a trend of transferring responsibility for retirement security from governments and employers (via defined benefit [DB] plans) to the individual (via defined contribution [DC] plans), as neither...

April 10, 2017
Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, Regulation, , ,
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March 2017

01Mar

The Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (General Levy) (Amendment) Regulations 2017

The general levy on occupational and personal pension schemes recovers the core funding provided by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for 3 public bodies: The Pensions Regulator The Pensions Advisory Service The Pensions Ombudsman This consultation seeks views on the proposed rates of the levy for the financial year 2017/18 onwards. This consultation is primarily aimed at pension scheme trustees, managers and administrators. We also welcome comments from the wider public. (more…)

March 1, 2017
Adequacy, Articles, Pension design, Regulation, , ,
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February 2017

04Feb

The Effect of Non-contributory Pensions on Saving in Mexico

By IADB This paper examines the effects of non-contributory pension programs at the federal and state levels on Mexican households’ saving patterns using micro data from the Mexican Income and Expenditure Survey. The federal program by itself appears to reduce the saving rate of households whose oldest member is either 18 to 54 or 65 to 69. State programs by themselves have no significant effects on household saving rates in the smallest localities, but in larger localities they may reduce...

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

Non-Contributory Pensions and Savings: Evidence from Argentina

By Martín González-Rozada & Hernán Ruffo This paper examines the effects of Argentina’s Plan de Inclusión Previsional (PIP), which changed the pension system in a way that generated a new noncontributory pillar, produced a huge expansion in pension coverage between 2005 and 2008 and a transfer of a vast amount of resources to households. Using a difference in differences methodology it is found that the PIP policy has reduced the incentives to work and to be in the labor force...

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

The Voluntary Contributions Model–Study Regarding The Completion Of The Length Of Service

By Constantin Anghelache & Ana CARP In this article we present the study on “Buying years of service (seniority)” which is a particular case of the voluntary contributions model proposed by the author in a previous work. In the case study presented in this article, we show the groups of people addressed by Law no.186 / 2016 for “buying years of service”, we quantify the results of applying this legislative measure and we estimate the implications on the evolution of...

February 4, 2017
Articles, Pension design, System Sustainability, ,
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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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