February 2020

28Feb

The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality

By Angus Deaton The world is a better place than it used to be. People are healthier, wealthier, and live longer. Yet the escapes from destitution by so many has left gaping inequalities between people and nations. In The Great Escape, Nobel Prize–winning economist Angus Deaton—one of the foremost experts on economic development and on poverty—tells the remarkable story of how, beginning 250 years ago, some parts of the world experienced sustained progress, opening up gaps and setting the...

February 28, 2020
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28Feb

The Age of Sustainable Development

By Jeffrey D Sachs, Ban Ki-moon Jeffrey D. Sachs is one of the world's most perceptive and original analysts of global development. In this major new work he presents a compelling and practical framework for how global citizens can use a holistic way forward to address the seemingly intractable worldwide problems of persistent extreme poverty, environmental degradation, and political-economic injustice: sustainable development. Sachs offers readers, students, activists, environmentalists, and policy makers the tools, metrics, and practical pathways they need...

February 28, 2020
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28Feb

Dynamic Incentives in Retirement Earnings-Replacement Benefits

By Andrés Dean, Sebastian Fleitas, KU Leuven, Mariana Zerpa Many defined-benefit pension systems in developed and developing countries use a small set of final years of earnings to compute pension benefits. This provides dynamic incentives to report higher earnings in the final years of the career. In this paper, we document the responses of self-employed and employed workers to these incentives, using social security administrative records and household surveys from Uruguay. We implement event studies that leverage the...

February 28, 2020
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28Feb

Millennial Generation: Information on the Economic Status of Millennial Households Compared to Previous Generations

By Charles A. Jeszeck, Michael J. Collins, Jessica Rider, Kathleen McQueeney, Layla Moughari Recent research indicates that, across three key measures, economic mobility in the United States is limited. Specifically, the Millennial generation (those born between 1982 and 2000) might not have the same opportunity as previous generations had to fare better economically than their parents. According to studies GAO reviewed, the share of people making more money than their parents at the same age (absolute mobility) has declined...

February 28, 2020
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28Feb

Poverty Reduction Among Older People Through Pensions: A Comparative Analysis

By Olaf van Vliet, Koen Caminada, Kees Goudswaard, Jinxian Wang Given the ageing of the populations in many Western countries, older people constitute an important group in the analysis of poverty. In this chapter, we examine the poverty incidence among older people across LIS countries, relying on data from the Luxembourg Income Study. The data show that poverty rates are substantially reduced by redistribution via tax/benefit systems (mainly via pension benefits). Furthermore, the data show that old-age poverty rates...

February 28, 2020
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28Feb

Greek parliament approves pension bill

Greece’s parliament on Thursday approved a pension bill that introduces more flexibility for the self-employed over contributions and incentives to stay working longer on a promise of higher pensions. The new framework, that also creates a digital social security registry, was approved by a majority of lawmakers in the 300-seat parliament. Read also Greece. Parliament opens debate on new social security bill The conservative government says workers and employers stand to benefit from the reforms, which are intended to safeguard the system's...

February 28, 2020
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28Feb

UK. Pensions take hit as FTSE loses £152billion in four days due to coronavirus

PENSION savings took a battering yesterday after billions of pounds were wiped off the stock market in the wake of the growing coronavirus outbreak. The London Stock Exchange dropped to a new 13-month low as the spread of Covid-19 hit markets around the world and traders warned that it could lead to “anaemic global growth”.  The FTSE 100 blue-chip index has lost £152billion in the past four days – a fall of 8.2 percent so far this week, shedding £62billion yesterday. It...

February 28, 2020
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28Feb

Nigeria. Investing pension funds: Worries, prospects by stakeholders

Just before the federal government decided to step down borrowing from the dormant pension fund, reactions ranging from worries to expectations continued to trail the plan by government to utilise N2 trillion of the current N10 trillion available pension fund in developing infrastructure through the creation of products that Pension Fund Administrators (PFA) would be attracted to invest in. The government’s plan is aimed at improving infrastructure such as railway, road, electricity, among others, while also creating areas of opportunities...

February 28, 2020
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27Feb

Coronavirus, Global Aging & How Future Contagions May Affect Life In Retirement

The Novel Coronavirus is spreading. So is fear. Despite our alleged rational, technologically-advanced, and informed era – fear changes everything. Unfortunately, the fear factor around the current and future global contagions is likely to grow exponentially and is likely to disproportionately affect the lives and wellbeing of older people. News of the Coronavirus has spread far ahead of the contagion itself. Nearly every news source has headlined the virus. As of this writing, nearly 800 million hits can...

February 27, 2020
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27Feb

France shows slow progress of pension reform in parliament, raising concerns of Macron imposing it by decree

Discussions in France's National Assembly on the pension reform bill are continuing this Wednesday amid tensions delaying the progress of debates, marked by the opposition's rejection of the bill. Since February 17, the government initiative to establish a universal points-based system is on the daily agenda of the National Assembly. The mechanism used in the sessions by France Insoumise members and communists has been to introduce over 30,000 amendments in order to obstruct the bill, which is one of...

February 27, 2020
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