April 2023

UK. DB pensions show resilience despite market turbulence

The PwC Buyout Index recorded a surplus of £120bn in March, with the drop in gilt yields driving a reduction of £40bn on the previous month. Meanwhile, the Low Reliance Index also continues to show a sizable surplus of £290bn. This index assumes schemes invest in low-risk, income-generating assets like bonds, meaning they are unlikely to call on the sponsor for further funding. The resilience of pension schemes to short term market shocks is something the Pensions Regulator (TPR) highlighted...

The Maximum Human Lifespan Will Rise Dramatically This Century, Researchers Say

Our ability to extend human lifespans is improving dramatically, but whether there is any natural limit to how far we can push is an outstanding question. New research contradicts claims that we’re approaching a maximum human lifespan. The question of whether or not there is a limit to how long humans can live has fascinated scientists for decades. While answering this question is likely to require a better understanding of the physiological process of aging, researchers have long tried to...

March 2023

México. Guillermo Zamarripa es nuevo presidente de la Amafore

La Asociación Mexicana de Administradoras de Fondos para el Retiro (Amafore) informó que Guillermo Zamarripa Escamilla será el nuevo presidente del gremio de las afores a partir del 10 abril. La Amafore detalló que Zamarripa Escamilla impulsará el fortalecimiento de la industria en beneficio de los trabajadores y fortalecerá su confianza en el sistema de ahorro para el retiro. En el mismo documento, Guillermo Zamarripa explicó que los fondos de pensiones han tenido un crecimiento importante en el mundo y las...

The cost of living

We first took evidence on the cost of living crisis in February 2022, when inflation was forecast to peak at 7.25% in April 2022. Since then, we have seen the invasion of Ukraine compound the difficult economic picture and inflationary pressure seen internationally and domestically after the COVID-19 pandemic, and inflation now looks set to top 11% in October—the highest in 40 years. However, the context for the cost of living crisis and its impact on the poorest in...

Sustainable Investment: Best Practice Disclosure Checklist for Pension Funds

By World Bank Group There are compelling reasons for asset owners – in particular large pension funds and sovereign wealth funds – to adopt sustainable investment, and for governments to support them in these endeavours. First, asset owners have a key role to play in providing the capital that supports national economic and development goals. Second, sustainability issues – for example, climate change, labour rights, public health – are important drivers of investment value. Third, asset owners play a key...

Does Common Ownership Affect Employee Welfare? Evidence from Corporate Pension Funding

By Charles Hsu, Zhiming Ma & Kaitang Zhou This study examines the effect of common institutional ownership on corporate pension funding. We posit that a common owner’s incentive to maximize shareholder value may come at the cost of employee welfare. Consistent with this prediction, we find robust evidence that firms with common ownership demonstrate greater pension underfunding than firms without common ownership. This effect increases with firms’ value-added activities, common owners’ shareholding, duration of ownership, and portfolio size. It decreases...

ESG and Climate Change: Pension Fund Dos and Don’ts

By Randy Bauslaugh Pension fund administrators have a fiduciary duty to prudently manage financial risks and opportunities when investing plan assets and when managing plan operations that are paid from the pension fund. This includes the financial risks and opportunities associated with climate change and other environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. But what are the legal dos and don’ts? Plan fiduciaries will always be on solid legal ground if they take ESG information into account for financial purposes – to...

Frames, Incentives, and Education: Effectiveness of Interventions to Delay Public Pension Claiming

By Franca Glenzer, Pierre-Carl Michaud & Stefan Staubli Many people forgo a higher stream of public pension income by claiming early. We provide both quasi-experimental and survey-experimental evidence that the timing of public pension claiming is relatively inelastic to changes in financial incentives in Canada. Using the survey experiment, we evaluate the effect of two different educational interventions and different ways of framing the incentive to delay claiming. While all three types of interventions induce delays, these interventions have heterogeneous...

México Ratifica Convención Interamericana Sobre La Protección De Los Derechos Humanos De Las Personas Mayores

La secretaria de Bienestar, Ariadna Montiel Reyes, destaca que el artículo 4 de la Constitución “no es letra muerta” y garantiza la pensión universal a más de 11 millones de personas adultas mayores en el país La secretaria de Bienestar, Ariadna Montiel Reyes, celebró el depósito del instrumento de ratificación de la Convención Interamericana sobre la Protección de los Derechos Humanos de las Personas Mayores, con el cual, México alcanza la meta de garantizar el derecho a la seguridad social...

España. El Congreso da luz verde a la reforma de las pensiones pese a los obstáculos de la derecha

Euforia en el seno del Gobierno, resistencia en la derecha. Estas son las dos posturas que se han podido ver este jueves en el hemiciclo a la luz de la resolución del Pleno del Congreso, que ha dado luz verde de forma definitiva a la reforma de las pensiones planteada por el ministerio de José Luis Escrivá y que ha contado con una holgada mayoría gracias al amplio apoyo de los socios, incluido Unidas Podemos. Así, la mejora de...