March 2019

03Mar

Understanding the Spatial Disparities and Vulnerability of Population Aging in China

By Yang Cheng (Beijing Normal University (BNU)), Siyao Gao (Beijing Normal University (BNU)), Shuai Li (Beijing Normal University (BNU)), Yuchao Zhang (Independent), Mark Rosenberg (Queen's University) Understanding the regional pattern of population aging in China enables rational policy making to address the challenges of inequity in social welfare and care resources among the east–central–west regions and rural–urban areas of China. This study uses census data in 2000 and 2010, and aging population ratios, annual increase rates, and spatial auto-correlation analysis...

March 3, 2019
Aging, Articles, Labor Market,
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February 2019

23Feb

Household Savings in Central Eastern and Southeastern Europe: How Do Poorer Households Save?

By Elisabeth Beckmann (Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB)) Based on a survey of households in 10 Central Eastern European and Western Balkan countries, this paper presents new and unique evidence on which households have savings and how they save. The paper shows that the percentage of savers is low, and savings are frequently informal. Formal savings are dominated by bank savings, and participation in contractual and capital market savings is very low in comparison to high-income countries. Poor households are significantly less...

February 23, 2019
Articles, Labor Market, Savings, , , ,
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23Feb

On the Political Feasibility of Increasing the Legal Retirement Age

By Benjamin Bittschi (ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research) & Berthold Ulrich Wigger Within a politico-economic model we first establish three hypotheses: (i) Retirees generally prefer a higher retirement age than workers, whereby just retired individuals prefer the highest retirement age, (ii) in equilibrium the level of the legal retirement age is increasing in longevity and (iii) decreasing in the public pension replacement rate. We then test these hypotheses empirically. Employing micro data for Germany we corroborate the...

February 23, 2019
Aging, Articles, Pension design, ,
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23Feb

Pension Funds with Automatic Enrollment Schemes: Lessons for Emerging Economies

By Heinz P. Rudolph (The World Bank) Since the introduction of the KiwiSaver scheme in New Zealand in 2006, several countries have implemented, or are in the process of implementing, voluntary funded pension systems with automatic enrollment features. Since most of the literature has focused on countries with the common law tradition, including the United Kingdom and the United States, this note analyzes cases of countries with the civil code tradition, including Turkey, Poland, the Russian Federation, Chile, Brazil, and...

February 23, 2019
Articles, Pension design, System Sustainability, , , , , , , , ,
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17Feb

Intergenerational Fairness: Will Our Kids Live Better than We Do

By Parisa Mahboubi (C.D. Howe Institute) While large government deficits and debt raise concerns regarding intergenerational fairness, their longterm intergenerational impacts can significantly differ, depending on demographic shifts and future economic policy. In particular, population aging in Canada has accelerated during the past decade due to declining fertility and improving life expectancy. This demographic transition poses new fiscal challenges since it dampens growth in government revenue while putting pressure on government spending, particularly in healthcare and public pensions. Generational accounting...

February 17, 2019
Adequacy, Articles, Savings, , ,
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15Feb

Managing Uncertainty: The Search for a Golden Discount-Rate Rule for Defined-Benefit Pensions

By Stuart Landon (University of Alberta - Department of Economics), Constance E. Smith (University of Alberta - Department of Economics)This Commentary examines how the choice of a pension plan discount rate affects the tradeoff between the risk of holding insufficient assets to pay promised benefits and the cost of acquiring more assets. The choice of discount rate can have a dramatic effect on the value of a plan’s liabilities and, therefore, the assets needed to meet plan obligations. When...

February 15, 2019
Articles, Savings, ,
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15Feb

Pension Policy and the Financial System

By DAVID S. SCHARFSTEIN This paper examines the effect of pension policy on the structure of financial systems around the world. In particular, I explore the hypothesis that policies that promote pension savings also promote the development of capital markets. I present a model that endogenizes the extent to which savings are intermediated through banks or capital markets, and derive implications for corporate finance, household finance, banking, and the size of the financial sector. I then present a...

February 15, 2019
Articles, Pension design, Slider-Left, System Sustainability, , ,
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10Feb

Assessing Economic Resources in Retirement: The Role of Irregular Withdrawals from Tax-Advantaged Retirement Accounts

By Michael D. Hurd (RAND Corporation; State University of New York at Stony Brook - College of Arts and Science - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)) & Susann Rohwedder (RAND Corporation) Irregular withdrawals from IRAs and DC pensions are not included in standard measures of household income in the CPS or Health and Retirement Study. Yet, among retirees such withdrawals can supplement regular retirement income to finance consumption. It has been difficult to assess their importance,...

February 10, 2019
Adequacy, Aging, Articles, Savings, ,
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10Feb

What Is Policy Space for Diaconal Institutions? Challenges from Pension Obligations

By Hans Morten Haugen (VID Specialized University) Norwegian non-profit institutions have provided health care and social services in accordance with contracts with various public authorities. These contracts had various specifications concerning pensions. The core message in the contracts was, however, that employees in non-profit institutions were required to be included in similar pension agreements as public employees. During the latter part of the 2000s, this was no longer an explicit requirement in new contracts, but neither the various public contractors,...

February 10, 2019
Articles, Management, Pension design, Pension Management,
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10Feb

Bridging Public Pension Funds and Infrastructure Development

By Clive Lipshitz (Tradewind Interstate Advisors) & Ingo Walter (New York University - Leonard N. Stern School of Business; New York University (NYU) - Department of Finance) Underfunding of U.S. public pensions is a chronic policy issue that has become more severe over time. Public pension obligations were estimated at $5.96 trillion at the end of 2017 supported by assets of $4.33 trillion — a shortfall of $1.63 trillion and a ‘funded-ratio’ of 72.6%. We consider the sustainability of public...

February 10, 2019
Articles, Investing, Sustainability, ,
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