September 2018

2018 Global Retirement Index: An in-depth assessment of welfare in retirement around the world

From Natixis Retirement security is arguably at the crossroads of history. On one side is the three-pillar funding model that’s been the basis of retirement systems across the globe for the better part of a century. On the other is the reality of 21st century demographics, fiscal imbalances, and monetary policies that are straining the resources of governments, employers and individuals worldwide. In the balance is our ability as a society to provide individuals with the opportunities and resources that...

July 2018

Policy-Making at the European Periphery: The Case of Croatia

By Zdravko Petak,‎ Kristijan Kotarski This book examines Croatia's economic and political transformation over the last 30 years. It brings together the best political scientists, macroeconomists and public finance experts from Croatia to provide an in-depth analysis of the Croatian policy-making context and the impact of Europeanization upon its domestic institutional framework. The second part of the book scrutinizes the political economy context and Croatia's long-term macroeconomic under-performance, especially in comparison to other transition economies. The final part explores sectoral...

Demography and Provisions for Retirement: The Pension Composition, an Equilibrium Approach

By B.M.S. van Praag (University of Amsterdam) & J. Peter Hop (University of Amsterdam) Pensions may be provided for in a modern society by several methods, viz., voluntary individual savings, mandatory fully funded occupational pension systems, and mandatory social security financed by pay-as-you-go. The specific mixture of the three systems we will call the pension composition. We assume that individual workers decide about their own individual savings, that the fully funded occupational system is decided upon by the age cohort of...

December 2017

The Power of Percentage: Quantitative Framing of Pension Income

By Henriette M. Prast (Tiburg University) & Federica Teppa (De Nederlandsche Bank) We investigate whether the quantitative frame used to communicate future pension income to plan members matters for perceived pension income adequacy. We allocate plan members randomly to one of four pension income framing conditions: annual pension income, monthly pension income, pension income as percentage of current income, pension income as decimal of current income. We find that expressing projected pension income as a percentage (decimal) of current income...

November 2017

Achieving pension goals in retirement: how to move Latin American DC second pillars forward

By Eduardo Rodriguez Montemayor PPI’s Editorial Board editorial@pensionpolicy.net Nobel-prize winner Robert C. Merton stated in more than one occasion that “our approach to DC savings is all wrong: we need to think about monthly income, not net worth”, in reference to how defined-contribution (DC) pension schemes usually focus on maximizing the amount of assets that people accumulate at the time of retirement instead of focusing on actually achieving a regular pension payment during retirement. Nicholas Barr and Peter Diamond, two of the global...

Pension Goals and Institutional Arrangements: Reforms DC 2.0 for Latin America

By Manuel Enrique Garcia Huitron Sr. (Inter-American Development Bank) & Eduardo Rodriguez-Montemayor (INSEAD) The pioneering pension reforms that brought a market for individual defined-contribution (DC) pension accounts to some Latin American countries in the 1980s and 1990s have failed to gain widespread social legitimacy. Such systems do not cover everyone, and the market design and regulatory infrastructure are not geared towards achieving the objective of maximizing the value of pensions. This failure stems from a combination of flaws in the...

Finance-Informed Citizens, Citizen-Informed Finance: An Essay Occasioned by the International Handbook of Financial Literacy

By Lauren E. Willis (Loyola Law School Los Angeles) Throughout the world, the dominant discourse treats “financial literacy” as both necessary and sufficient to improve the well-being of individuals and society. This essay argues that financial literacy is neither, and that promoting financial literacy is a perverse way to address the inadequate retirement funding, overindebtedness, financial crises, and other social ills that have inspired governments and educators to pursue it. In its place, this essay suggests that the aim of...

October 2017

A New Labour Ecosystem in the Sharing Economy: A Platform for Growth?

By Marta Santos Silva (University of Bremen) The role of the traditional labour market is being challenged by globalisation and modern technology, particularly the unprecedented and generalised use of smartphones. Online platforms facilitating the on-demand economy are radically changing the prospects for the jobs of the future, which will be less regulated and more inclusive. This paper focuses on online ridesharing platforms, particularly Uber as international market leader, and their potential for combating social inequality and developing the transport industry. Online ridesharing platforms...

Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index 2017

By Yianni Katiforis As the social and economic effects of population ageing grow, nations’ capacities to effectively provide financial security in retirement become progressively more critical. A public measure of this readiness, the MMGPI’s global profile has also increased steadily since its inception in 2009. This year, the 9th edition of the report assessed the retirement income systems of 30 nations across six continents, covering more than half of the global population. Despite retaining its third-place ranking behind Denmark and The Netherlands,...

Transición pensional del Régimen General de pensiones en el ESD: Servidores Públicos

por Angela Janeth Rivera Silva Los fondos de pensiones que administran el Régimen De Prima Media con Prestación Definida, han visto en aumento el número de demandas en su contra por parte de los pensionados por ley 33 de 1985, quienes solicitan la Reliquidación de la Pensión con el IBL del último año de servicios y todos los factores salariales percibidos, con fundamento en la Sentencia del 4 de agosto de 2010 del Consejo de Estado , y la Circular...