February 2017

Adequacy, Fairness and Sustainability of Pay-as-You-Go-Pension-Systems: Defined Benefit Versus Defined Contribution

By Jennifer Alonso-García, María el Carmen Boado-Penas & Pierre Devolder There are three main challenges facing public pension systems. First, pension systems need to provide an adequate income for pensioners in the retirement phase. Second, participants wish a fair level of benefits in relation to the contributions paid. Last but no least, the pension system would need to be financially sustainable in the long run. In this paper, we analyse defined benefit versus defined contribution schemes in terms of adequacy,...

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....

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...

Adequacy (1) Pension entitlements, replacement rates and pension wealth

By Edward Whitehouse This note briefly sets out a methodology for calculating prospective pension entitlements promised in the future to today’s workers. This method can (and has been) applied to a wide range of countries with very different pension systems. The entitlements shown here are prospective. It looks at theoretical values and so illustrates the way the current parameters and rules of pension systems will work for different example individuals. This can be used to assess the adequacy of future...

World Bank Pension Reforms and Development Patterns in the World System and in the Wider Europe: A 109 Country Investigation Based on 33 Indicators of Economic Growth, and Human, Social and Ecological Well-Being, and a European Regional Case Study

By Arno Tausch On the first anniversary of the death of Nobel Laureate Professor Franco Modigliani, the Luxembourg Institute for European and International Studies (LIEIS) organised a conference on 'Reforming European Pension Systems' on 24 and 25 September 2004 in Schengen. Initially, the intention was to hold this conference in the presence of Professor Modigliani who had written a comprehensive paper for the LIEIS. However, due to ill health, such a meeting had to be postponed repeatedly. A third date was...

Micro-pensions in India: Issues and challenges

By Savita Shankar & Mukul G. Asher This article aims to fill a gap in the social security literature on India by examining the role of micro-pensions. The analysis suggests that because of the heterogeneity of the target population, micro-pension products — with microfinance institutions (MFIs) as the main, but not only sponsors — should be voluntary and portable and permit experimentation in their design and in the delivery of services. Accordingly, decentralized micro-pension schemes that operate within an appropriate...

Non-contributory pensions

By Sebastian Galiani, Paul Gertler & Rosangela Bando The creation of non-contributory pension schemes is becoming increasingly common as countries struggle to reduce poverty. Drawing on data from Mexico's Adultos Mayores Program (Older Adults Program) - a cash transfer scheme aimed at rural adults over 70 years of age - we evaluate the effects of this program on the well-being of the beneficiary population. Exploiting a quasi-experimental design whereby the program relies on exogenous geographical and age cutoffs to identify...

Shrouded costs of government: The political economy of state and local public pensions

By Edward L. Glaeser, Giacomo A M Ponzetto Why do public-sector workers receive so much of their compensation in the form of pensions and other benefits? This paper presents a political economy model in which politicians compete for taxpayers' and government employees' votes by promising compensation packages, but some voters cannot evaluate every aspect of promised compensation. If pension packages are "shrouded," so that public-sector workers better understand their value than ordinary taxpayers, then compensation will be highly back-loaded. In...

Pension Coverage for Parents and Educational Investment in Children : Evidence from Urban China

By Yang Du and Ren Mu When social security is established to provide pensions to parents, their reliance upon children for future financial support decreases, and their need to save for retirement also falls. In this study, the expansion of pension coverage from the state sector to the non-state sector in urban China is used as a quasi-experiment to analyze the intergenerational impact of social security on education investments in children. In a difference-in-differences framework, a significant increase in the...

Outcome Based Assessments for Private Pensions : A Handbook

By William Price, John Ashcroft and Michael Hafeman This report illustrates a new methodology to develop an Outcomes and Risk Based Supervision (ORBS) framework for funded pensions with a case study of Costa Rica. The approach was used in a FIRST funded project in Costa Rica with the regulator and supervisor of pensions SUPEN. The intention is to highlight an approach that may be useful in the region, and globally, to help agencies responsible for private pensions to focus on...