February 2021
05Feb

Latvian pensioners most at-risk of poverty in European Union

Latvian pensioners are the most at risk of suffering poverty among all European Union member states, according to data published by Eurostat February 3. Based upon data from 2019 the proportion of pensioners aged over 65 who are deemed to be at risk of poverty was between 10% and 30% in the majority of EU Member States. The four countries with an at-risk-of-poverty rate above 30% in 2019 were Latvia (54%), Estonia (51%), Bulgaria (36%) and Lithuania (35%). In...

February 5, 2021
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05Feb

Transition from the informal to the formal economy: Theory of Change

By ILO This umbrella theory of change provides the main pathways for the transition to formality of workers and enterprises. It is a general framework that can inform the development of theories of change focused on a specific sector, occupational groups, forms of informality or policy areas. For enterprises, formalization means bringing them under the regulation with the advantages and obligations that this entails. It includes the extension of the scope of fiscal, labour and social security regulation to...

February 5, 2021
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05Feb

2020 Global Equity Release Roundtable Survey

By EY In conjunction with the 2020 Global Equity Release Roundtable, representatives from each country attending have been surveyed to understand the details of how equity release markets operate in different countries. This document summarizes the survey responses received. The responses provided have not been verified by EY professionals and simply represents the views of the responders. The information in this pack should not be regarded as comprehensive or sufficient for making decisions, nor should it be used in...

February 5, 2021
Books, Investing, Pension Management, Reports,
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05Feb

Debt for Climate: Green Bonds and Other Instruments

By Paul Rose This chapter, prepared for the Edward Elgar Research Handbook on Climate Finance and Investment Law (2020, Michael Mehling and Harro van Asselt (eds.)), examines the rise of green bonds, climate bonds, and other green financial instruments. Although climate finance has enjoyed positive momentum in recent years, this momentum is at risk—with the possibility of reversal—if climate markets fail to provide competitive risk-adjusted returns. For climate finance to compete effectively, governments, issuers, and investors must resolve a...

February 5, 2021
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05Feb

Counter-Hegemonic Finance: The Gamestop Short Squeeze

By Usman W. Chohan The events that surrounded the short squeeze of various downtrodden stocks such as Gamestop (GME) allude to a counter-hegemonic financial effort, with small-scale investors pooling in to sabotage the short-positions of large Wall Street players such as hedge funds. This paper frames these events in terms of public reprisal for the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and public contempt for insular financial private interest. The discussion suggests that such people-power initiatives, abetted by powerful elite...

February 5, 2021
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05Feb

Portfolio Management for Insurers and Pension Funds and COVID-19: Targeting Volatility for Equity, Balanced and Target-Date Funds with Leverage Constraints

By Bao Huy Doan, Jonathan J. Reeves, Michael Sherris Insurers and pension funds face the challenges of historically low interest rates and volatility in equity markets, that have been accentuated due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent advances in equity portfolio management with a target volatility have been shown to deliver improved on average risk adjusted return, after transaction costs. This paper studies these targeted volatility portfolios in applications to equity, balanced and target-date funds with varying constraints on leverage....

February 5, 2021
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04Feb

Greece’s number of retirees at poverty risk surprises

Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, released new data today that measures how many pensioners are at risk of poverty, and their findings on Greece may very well surprise you. The statistical office said “In 2019, the proportion of pensioners aged over 65 at risk of poverty in the EU stood at 15.1%, slightly above the figure of 14.5% in 2018 as well as above the risk of poverty of working age population (16 to 64 years)...

February 4, 2021
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04Feb

Chile patients find relief with withdrawal of pensions

Ximena Nancumil saves Jan. 21 as a special date on her calendar. That day, her father, who was ill with prostate cancer, had not wanted to drink or eat anything, but his face changed with the news that the Chilean Senate had approved the withdrawal of pension funds for terminal patients. “The day my dad found out he was very deteriorated, he didn’t even had any water, but when he heard the news it was like a balm for...

February 4, 2021
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04Feb

UK. Pension scheme trustees challenged over climate change reporting

The new regulations will require occupational pension schemes to have – and report on – effective governance, strategy, risk management and accompanying metrics and targets for the assessment and management of climate-related risks and opportunities. A key requirement is that pension schemes report disclosure aligned with the taskforce on climate-related financial disclosures (TCFD) framework. Since an earlier consultation in this area, the government has announced its intention to make TCFD-aligned disclosures mandatory across the economy by 2025, with a...

February 4, 2021
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04Feb

Gulf’s pension funds can learn something from Norway

The initial set of 2020 financial results from listed companies offers an opportunity to evaluate not just their performance but the strength – or otherwise - of their operational strategies. This is due to multiple considerations, most notably the exceptional situation created by the pandemic and the challenges – and opportunities - imposed on individual economies and the global economy as a whole. What we see are some entities taking advantage of the crisis to turn in substantial profits,...

February 4, 2021
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