July 2022
22Jul

Myopic Savings Behaviour of Future Polish Pensioners

By Sonia Buchholtz, Jan Gaska & Marek Góra Low saving rates combined with low effective retirement age herald old-age poverty. This paper examines the preferred strategies of future Polish pensioners in order to sustain the standard of living in the future. A two-step approach is used: as a first-best strategy, we explore determinants of supplementary saving with binary logistic models; as a second-best strategy, we examine alternative options with principal component analysis. Future retirees rarely accumulate long-term savings, do not use...

July 22, 2022
Articles, Savings, , , ,
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May 2022

Progressing Towards Efficiency: The Role for Labor Tax Progression in Reforming Social Security
19May

Progressing Towards Efficiency: The Role for Labor Tax Progression in Reforming Social Security

By Krzysztof Makarski, Joanna Tyrowicz & Oliwia Komada We study interactions between progressive labor taxation and social security reform. Increasing longevity puts fiscal strain that necessitates the social security reform. The current social security is redistributive, thus providing (at least partial) insurance against idiosyncratic income shocks, but at the expense of labor supply distortions. A reform which links pensions to individual incomes reduces distortions associated with social security contributions, but incurs insurance loss. We show that the progressive labor tax...

May 19, 2022
Articles, Savings, System Characterization, , , ,
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January 2021
04Jan

There is no escape from late retirement

European countries face the challenge of the economic and social consequences of an aging population. In particular, pension systems have to adapt to the changes taking place, maintaining, on the one hand, the financial stability related to the balancing of contributions receipts and pension expenditure, and at the same time the adequacy of benefits related to the protection of pensioners from poverty and the provision of an adequate income after leaving employment. One of the key instruments...

January 4, 2021
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November 2019

11Nov

Poland Approves Plans to Overhaul Pension System

Poland is moving its state-guaranteed private pension benefits to IRA-like accounts. The shift is designed to trim the Polish government’s liabilities and save $5 billion thanks to reduced retirement outlays. The government-backed private system, called OFE, is valued at about $43 billion. Private pension funds are owned and run by firms like MetLife, NN Group, and Aviva. The government is transferring assets to fill a budget gap and minimize uncertainty. Poles’ private pension money will be moved to the...

November 11, 2019
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April 2019

29Apr

Opinion. Poland’s latest pension reform is good for the government, bad for savers

Recently announced reforms to Poland’s pension system are just the latest in a long line of changes made over the past eight years. Unfortunately, the majority of these have been motivated by short-term goals (either fiscal or political), without looking at the long-term stability of the pension system. Sadly, the current changes follow the same pattern. After lowering the retirement age to 65 (for men) and 60 (for women) and announcing discretionary one-off payments for pensioners before this year’s...

April 29, 2019
News, OP Ed,
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February 2019

23Feb

Pension Funds with Automatic Enrollment Schemes: Lessons for Emerging Economies

By Heinz P. Rudolph (The World Bank) Since the introduction of the KiwiSaver scheme in New Zealand in 2006, several countries have implemented, or are in the process of implementing, voluntary funded pension systems with automatic enrollment features. Since most of the literature has focused on countries with the common law tradition, including the United Kingdom and the United States, this note analyzes cases of countries with the civil code tradition, including Turkey, Poland, the Russian Federation, Chile, Brazil, and...

February 23, 2019
Articles, Pension design, System Sustainability, , , , , , , , ,
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August 2018

29Aug

Poland announces new contribution plan for pensions

Under the program, employees, employers and the government will regularly contribute small amounts into individual accounts. The program, which is aimed at some 11.5 million people on job contracts who have little or no savings and is due to be launched next year, is intended to ease the pressure on the state-run retirement system, which is considered to be insufficient to meet future requirements. The program is the latest social policy change by the ruling Law and Justice Party that has...

August 29, 2018
News, Slider,
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