February 2017

Changing Frameworks for Retirement Security

By Olivia S. Mitchell In 1963, the termination of the Studebaker Corporation’s pension plan wiped out or significantly reduced the pensions of thousands of the automaker’s employees and retirees. In response, Congress passed the 1974 Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), a monumental and revolutionary piece of legislation crafted to address corporate pension underfunding and set new rules regarding defined benefit (DB) and other retirement plans. ERISA also established the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation as a government-run insurer to serve...

Aging and Financial Victimization: How Should the Financial Service Industry Respond?

By Marguerite DeLiema and Martha Deevy Elder financial victimization is a growing problem facing older Americans. As the conduits of financial transactions, financial firms are positioned to stop losses at their source. Representatives at small and large firms were interviewed to describe their financial exploitation training and prevention programs, their detection and response protocols, and how they balance the goals of client protection with the client’s right to autonomy and privacy in financial decision-making. Representatives from regulatory agencies were interviewed...

5th Ethiopia economic update : why so idle? – wages and employment in a crowded labor market : draft for public launch

By World Bank Strong economic growth continued in 2014-15, but the drought slowed down Ethiopia’s growth to 8 percent in 2015-16. Exports have had their worst performance in the last decade and the current account balance remained large. Inflation is remarkable stable given the recent drought and even declining; it stood at 5.6 percent in October 2016. Understanding the nature of urban labor markets is important for a successful transition to a manufacturing and service-oriented economy and to further reduce...

Pension Coverage in Latin America: trends and determination

By Rafael Rofman & Maria Laura Oliveri This document presents an analysis of pension coverage trends in Latin America for the past decades. Its preparation involved the collection, revision, and processing of household surveys in over 18 countries in the region, spanning a period of almost 40 years in some cases. The main goal of this document is to offer comparable data on pension coverage among the economically active population and the elderly, considering the relevance of several demographic, social,...

International patterns of pension provision II: a worldwide overview of facts and figures

By Montserrat Pallares Miralles, Carolina Romero & Edward Whitehouse This paper presents and explains cross country data for mandatory publicly and privately managed pension systems around the world. This report is organized into three parts corresponding to three broad types of indicators. These indicators relate to: (i) the relevant contextual factors referred to here as environment; (ii) pension system design parameters; and (iii) indicators of performance. Part one of the report provides some information on the environment in which the...

Ageing and Poverty in Africa and the Role of Social Pensions

By Nanak Kakwani & Kalanidhi Subbarao In many low income African countries, three factors are placing an undue burden on the elderly. First, the burden on the elderly has enormously increased with the increase in mortality of prime age adults due to HIV AIDS pandemic and regional conflicts. Second, the traditional safety net of the extended family has become ineffective and unreliable for the elderly. Third, in a few countries, the elderly are called upon to shoulder the responsibility of...

Social Security in Theory and Practice (II): Efficiency Theories

By Casey B. Mulligan & Xavier Sala-i-Martin 166 countries have some kind of public old age pension.What economic forces create and sustain old age Social Security as a public program? Mulligan and Sala-i-Martin (1999b) document several of the internationally and historically common features of social security programs, and explore "political" theories of Social Security. This paper discusses the "efficiency theories", which view creation of the SS program as a full of partial solution to some market failure. Efficiency explanations of social...

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...

The 'Crisis' in Defined Benefit Corporate Pension Liabilities: Current Solutions and Future Prospects

By Gordon L. Clark & Ashby H. B. Monk Once an integral component of company-sponsored compensation schemes in many western economies, private defined benefit (DB) pensions are in decline. For many, DB schemes (and their related health care liabilities, depending on the jurisdiction) have hobbled the financial well-being of plan sponsors and even whole sectors of industry. If a constraint on shareholder value in the short-term, these schemes threaten long-term corporate survival in the emerging global economy. While there remains considerable debate...

The ‘Crisis’ in Defined Benefit Corporate Pension Liabilities: Current Solutions and Future Prospects

By Gordon L. Clark & Ashby H. B. Monk Once an integral component of company-sponsored compensation schemes in many western economies, private defined benefit (DB) pensions are in decline. For many, DB schemes (and their related health care liabilities, depending on the jurisdiction) have hobbled the financial well-being of plan sponsors and even whole sectors of industry. If a constraint on shareholder value in the short-term, these schemes threaten long-term corporate survival in the emerging global economy. While there remains considerable debate...