July 2017

23Jul

Retirement Security in an Aging Society

By James M. Poterba The share of the U.S. population over the age of 65 was 8.1 percent in 1950, 12.4 percent in 2000, and is projected to reach 20.9 percent by 2050. The percent over 85 is projected to more than double from current levels, reaching 4.2 percent by mid-century. The aging of the U.S. population makes issues of retirement security increasingly important. Elderly individuals exhibit wide disparities in their sources of income. For those in the bottom half of...

July 23, 2017
Aging, Articles, Investing, Savings, , ,
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09Jul

Policy Reflection: Letter of Credit Usage by Defined Benefit Pension Plans in Canada

By Norma L. Nielson & Peggy L. Hedges (University of Calgary) There is an argument to be made for letting corporations hold off on contributing to their employees’ defined benefit pension plans, as long as there is a guarantee the cash will come eventually. That is the reason that provincial governments began allowing creditworthy companies to instead provide a letter of credit, backed by a Canadian bank, guaranteeing the cash deposit, and secured by the company’s line of credit or...

July 9, 2017
Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, Regulation,
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09Jul

A Study on the Prospects and Problems of Unorganised Labours in India

By Ravindra B.K. (Alliance University), Pradeep M. D. & T. Ramjani Sab (Srinivas Institute of Management Studies) India comprises 43.7 crore people working with the skill in the residual sector as unorganized labours. Around 24.6 core engage in agriculture, 4.4 crore in construction and remaining people in the manufacturing and service sectors. This sector faces eventual deficiencies in regulations over employment, remuneration pattern, poor employer and employee relationship and casual work culture. Informal sector covers large number of workers from...

July 9, 2017
Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, Regulation,
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02Jul

PEPP – Towards a Harmonized European Legislative Framework for Personal Pensions

By Hans van Meerten & Sebastiaan Niels Hooghiemstra LL.M (Utrecht University) In the last couple of years questions arose how the PEPP should ideally be regulated and the European Commission and various interest groups, till now, have not found a solution for all possible problems in developing a common regulatory framework yet. For that purpose, this Report focused on how the PEPP could ideally be regulated. It discussed the PEPP and the PPP, how PEPPs as a ‘wrapper product’ should be...

July 2, 2017
Adequacy, Articles, Corporate Governance, Pension design, ,
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June 2017

11Jun

Pensions: What Solidarity between Generations?

By Gérard-François Dumont (University of Paris 4 Sorbonne) To understand the fact that solidarity between generations is essential for pensions, Gérard-François Dumont presents a parable inspired by the story of Robinson Crusoe. It shows that it is always the case that assets reduce their purchasing power to release payments to pensioners, whether they are in a distribution or capitalization system. According to the author, "capitalization is a system of financial distribution; Distribution is a system of human capitalization". (more…)

June 11, 2017
Articles, Labor Market, System Sustainability,
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May 2017

22May

The Swiss Occupational Pension System: A Governance View

By Nadège Bregnard (University of Neuchatel) This paper describes the current Swiss occupational pension system with a focus on its governance aspects by emphasizing on the minimum guarantees established by the law, the governance-related requirements, and the most recent supervision framework. It documents in details how the various and different Swiss pension funds are structured and organised and identify six key structure characteristics to classify them. The major distinction with other country pension systems is that pure defined-contributions plans do...

May 22, 2017
Articles, Regulation, Supervision, System Sustainability, ,
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08May

The Politics of Social Protection in Ghana: Policy Reform in a Competitive African Democracy (2000-2014)

By Eduard Grebe (Stellenbosch University) The Kufuor (New Patriotic Party) administration of 2000-2008 implemented substantial reforms of the contributory social insurance system (including the introduction of a national health insurance scheme and a new 'three tier' pensions system), and introduced a range of social assistance schemes targeted at the 'extreme poor'. This paper analyses the factors that drove policy reform and the broad cross-party consensus that emerged despite highly competitive elections. Electoral dynamics played a significant role, and this is...

May 8, 2017
Articles, Pension design, Regulation, ,
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01May

Non-Contributory Pensions and Savings: Evidence from Argentina

By Martín González-Rozada & Hernán Ruffo (Universidad Torcuato Di Tella) This paper examines the effects of Argentina's Plan de Inclusion 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...

May 1, 2017
Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, Savings, ,
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April 2017

24Apr

Retirement Security: The Importance of Conflict-Safe Advice

By Andrew L. Oringer (Dechert LLP) This article is adapted from testimony given by Andrew L. Oringer on March 24, 2009 before the House Subcommittee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. The testimony was given during the Subcommittee's hearings on the regulations of the US Department of Labor regarding exemptions for certain investment advice. (more…)

April 24, 2017
Articles, Pension design, Regulation, System Sustainability, ,
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10Apr

We are Not All the Same: Key Law, Policy and Practice Strategies for Improving the Lives of Older Women in the Lower Mainland

By Canadian Centre for Elder Law (British Columbia Law Institute) In 2011 the Canadian Centre for Elder law (CCEL) started the Older Women’s Dialogue Project (OWDP) to identify and take action on barriers to the well-being of older women. While gender has a significant impact on life experience, research and policy analysis often renders older women invisible: feminist inquiry tends to focus on girls and women of child-bearing age and gender-neutral aging policy concentrates on the experiences of men. The...

April 10, 2017
Aging, Articles, Labor Market
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