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04FebFebruary 4, 2017

Workplace-Linked Pensions for an Aging Demographic

By Olivia S. Mitchell & John Piggott Pensions and population aging intersect in two ways. First, demographic change threatens the sustainability of traditional pay-as-you-go social security pensions, leaving workplace-linked pensions with a greater role in retirement provision. Second, as the Baby Boom generation enters retirement, new challenges arise around its retirement support. This chapter reviews some of the implications of population aging for workplace pensions in this new environment, outlines market considerations important for workplace-related pension design for the future,...

February 4, 2017

Aging, Articles, Labor Market, Pension designAging (and old age), Labor Market, Occupational Pensions, Social Protection, Voluntary pensions

04FebFebruary 4, 2017

Should Regulation Be Countercyclical?

By Jonathan Masur & Eric Posner Politicians and commentators have from time to time proposed that regulations be suspended or delayed during recessions because of their adverse impact on employment. We evaluate this argument from within a macroeconomic framework. We argue that a case can be made for what we call countercyclical regulation if certain empirical premises are valid; explore the ways in which such regulation might best be designed; and evaluate the legal authority of agencies to issue countercyclical...

February 4, 2017

Articles, RegulationRegulation

04FebFebruary 4, 2017

Optimal Social Security Claiming Behavior under Lump Sum Incentives: Theory and Evidence

By Raimond Maurer, Olivia S. Mitchell, Ralph Rogalla & Tatjana Schimetschek People who delay claiming Social Security receive higher lifelong benefits upon retirement. We survey individuals on their willingness to delay claiming later, if they could receive a lump sum in lieu of a higher annuity payment. Using a moment-matching approach, we calibrate a lifecycle model tracking observed claiming patterns under current rules and predict optimal claiming outcomes under the lump sum approach. Our model correctly predicts that early claimers...

February 4, 2017

Articles, Pension design, RegulationBehavior, Labor Market, Social Protection

04FebFebruary 4, 2017

Pension Reform in Britain

By Edward Whitehouse This paper examines the evolution of the pension system in Britain. In particular, it focuses on the shift from pay-as-you-go, state-run defined-benefit pensions to individual, private-sector, funded defined-contribution accounts. It looks at three issues in this reform: the financing of the transition from pay-as-you-go to funded provision; the fiscal impact of voluntary switching and adverse selection; and the question of the degree to which personal pension accounts were 'over-sold' to individuals for whom they were not suitable....

February 4, 2017

Adequacy, Articles, RegulationRegulation

04FebFebruary 4, 2017

Uber Retirement

By Paul Secunda The rise of the gig economy with its part-time, itinerant, independent workers, in conjunction with the employee-centric nature of occupational retirement benefits under ERISA, has led to gig employees largely lacking meaningful retirement benefits. Current proposals to provide portable benefits to gig workers as independent workers or independent contractors are unacceptable because such benefits would not be secured by the fiduciary consumer protections of ERISA. However, two developments with regard to the retirement security of the gig workers...

February 4, 2017

Articles, Labor Market, Pension designRegulation

04FebFebruary 4, 2017

Inside Debt

By Alex Edmans & Qi Liu Existing theories advocate the exclusive use of equity-like instruments in executive compensation. However, recent empirical studies document the prevalence of debt-like instruments such as pensions. This paper justifies the use of debt as efficient compensation. Inside debt is a superior solution to the agency costs of debt than the solvency-contingent bonuses and salaries proposed by prior literature, since its payoff depends not only on the incidence of bankruptcy but also firm value in bankruptcy....

February 4, 2017

Articles, Investing, Pension designManagement, private pension management, public pension management)

04FebFebruary 4, 2017

Can Low Income Countries Afford Basic Social Protection? First Results of a Modelling Exercise

By Karuna Pal, Christina Behrendt, Florian Leger, Michael Cichon & Krysztof Hagemejer This report presents the methodology and the results of a modelling exercise that demonstrates that basic social protection benefits are not out of reach for low-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, even though some international assistance would be necessary for a transitory period. The Social Protection Sector of the International Labour Organization (ILO) has estimated the cost of basic social protection benefits education, health, pensions) for a selected number...

February 4, 2017

Articles, Pension design, System SustainabilityRegulation, Social Pensions, Sustainability

04FebFebruary 4, 2017

Ahorro y Futuro: Una perspectiva de genero

By Amafore La Asociación Mexicana de Afores (Amafore), atendiendo al compromiso que las Afores tienen con la sociedad, trabaja y promueve acciones para propiciar que los mexicanos tengan un mejor retiro. Conscientes de que la generación de conocimiento es indispensable, tanto para la definición de las estrategias de educación financiera y comunicación de la asociación, como para apoyar la estructuración de políticas públicas, dedica una parte de sus esfuerzos a este fin. Las mujeres enfrentan retos distintos a nivel personal y...

February 4, 2017

ArtículosLabor Market

04FebFebruary 4, 2017

The Norway Model

By David Chambers, Elroy Dimson & Antti Ilmanen The Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global was recently ranked the largest fund on the planet. It is also highly rated for its professional, low-cost, transparent, and socially responsible approach to asset management. Investment professionals increasingly refer to Norway as a model for managing financial assets. We present and evaluate the strategies followed by the Fund, review long-term performance, and describe how it responded to the financial crisis. We conclude with some lessons...

February 4, 2017

Articles, Pension design, RegulationInvestment, Management, private pension management, public pension management)

04FebFebruary 4, 2017

Adequacy (2) : Pension entitlements of recent retirees

By Edward Whitehouse & Asta Zviniene This note discusses how expected benefit levels can be assessed. The note points out the measurement of current benefit levels that are observable: they do not depend on any assumptions about the future. However, they do depend on past contribution patterns, macroeconomic developments and parameters and rules of the pension system rules that, in many cases, no longer apply today. This briefing discusses the measurement of empirical average pension levels, minimum pensions and the...

February 4, 2017

Adequacy, Aging, ArticlesAging (and old age), Labor Market

February 2017