January 2020

France. French transport strike drags on despite government compromise on pensions

A crippling French transport strike dragged into its 39th day on Sunday despite the government’s offer to withdraw the most contested measure of the pension reform plans that sparked the protest. Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said Saturday he would drop plans to increase the official retirement age to 64 from 62 in an effort to end a strike which has paralyzed Paris and its suburbs, with bus, train and metro services all badly disrupted. “I am willing to withdraw...

Macron Scraps Proposal to Raise Retirement Age in France

Faced with an unrelenting protest over proposed changes in France’s generous pension system, officials withdraw a move to raise the full-benefit retirement age to 64 from the present 62. Read Also France. French transport strike drags on despite government compromise on pensions With tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators once again coursing through the streets of Paris and other cities and clouds of tear gas and smashed store windows punctuating the urban landscape, the French government made a major concession on...

Informality and the Challenge of Pension Adequacy: Outlook and Reform Options for Peru

By: Christoph Freudenberg, Frederik G Toscani Past reforms have put the Peruvian pension system on a largely fiscally sustainable path, but the system faces important challenges in providing adequate pension levels for a large share of the population. Using administrative microdata at the affiliate level, we project replacement rates in the defined benefit (DB) and defined contribution (DC) pillars over the next 30 years and simulate the impact of various reform scenarios on the average level and distribution of...

Effect of Immigration on Depression Among Older Natives in Western Europe

By: Jose Escarce, Lorenzo Rocco To our knowledge, no study has examined the effect of immigration on the health of older natives. We use the Study of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to investigate whether immigration affects depression among natives 65-80 years old. Immigration may increase the supply and lower the price of personal and household services, a term that refers to care services and non-care services such as cleaning, meal preparation, and domestic chores. Higher consumption...

Sustainable Investing in Equilibrium

By: Lubos Pastor, Robert F. Stambaugh, Lucian A. Taylor We present a model of investing based on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria. In equilibrium, green assets have negative alphas, whereas brown assets have positive alphas. The ESG investment industry is at its largest, and the alphas of ESG-motivated investors are at their lowest, when there is large dispersion in investors' ESG preferences. When this dispersion shrinks, so does the ESG industry, even if all investors' ESG preferences are strong....

Demographic Obstacles to European Growth

By: Thomas F. Cooley, Espen Henriksen, Charlie Nusbaum Since the early 1990’s the growth rates of the four largest European economies—France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom—have slowed. This persistent slowdown suggests a low-frequency structural change is at work. A combination of longer individual life expectancies and declining fertility have led to gradually ageing populations. Demographic change affects economic growth directly through households savings and labor supply decisions and also growth indirectly through the pension systems and the need to...

UK. Ombudsman reports pension scheme to TPR

The Pensions Ombudsman has reported the Green Coal Limited Occupational Pension Scheme to the Pensions Regulator with concerns over the “status of the scheme”, after upholding a complaint against it. A client dubbed Mr E complained to the ombudsman that he had not been provided with any information on his pension for a year. Previously employed by the Royal Air Force, Mr E was a deferred member of the Armed Forces Pension Scheme, which transferred £20,824 at his request in December 2013...

The end of Retirement

By John D. Stoll. It took about six years of annual asset reviews with my financial planner, Joe Mackey, to confront a big question. After I spent my entire adult life trying to save enough to quit working by 65, Mr. Mackey wanted to know what my rush was. “Do you even think you’ll want to retire?” I’m a 42-year-old writer with a job offering travel, intellectual grist and social connection. With few hobbies and an allergy for sitting still, it’s...

Brexit and pensions: everything you need to know

Retirement savers will have to keep an eye on state pension payouts, the value of the pound and consumer protections now the country’s exit from the European Union is imminent. After one of the most stunning political turnarounds in history, Brexit now looks almost certain to happen on Jan 31. But the question on most people’s minds will be what it all means for them and their money. Pensions will be affected in a number of ways and, like all things when it comes...

The World’s Best Places to Retire in 2020

“Where should I retire?” This is the question we hear most often at International Living, and every January we give you our most definitive answer in the form of our Annual Global Retirement Index. When it was first conceived, our Retirement Index was our special way of coping with an embarrassment of riches. At that stage, IL had already spent over a decade exploring all manner of dream locales. The result was a huge and exciting variety of choice and opportunity. Fast-forward to...