September 2018

17Sep

The Crisis in Public Sector Pension Plans: A Blueprint for Reform in New Jersey

By Eileen Norcross (George Mason University - Mercatus Center) & Andrew G. Biggs (American Enterprise Institute) In this study, we consider the case of New Jersey, which operates five defined benefit pension plans for state employees. The New Jersey Senate unanimously passed legislation in February 2010 that would put a question on the November ballot to constitutionally require the state to begin to make its full annual payment to the state’s pension system. The bill requires the state to catch...

September 17, 2018
Articles, Management, Pension design, , ,
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17Sep

Pensions and living with your kids

By Markus Goldstein When a government implements a policy, there is often a question about how it will interact and/or displace existing informal practices. For example, awhile back there was a lot of discussion around how government provided insurance would displace (or not) informal risk sharing arrangements that may have been doing a good job of protecting some people from risk. But it’s hard to address this kind of question deeply in a randomized control trial. A lot of the informal...

September 17, 2018
Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, , ,
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08Sep

The future of regulation: Principles for regulating emerging technologies

By William D. Eggers, Mike Turley , Pankaj Kishnani Sweeping technological advancements are creating a sea change in today’s regulatory environment, posing significant challenges for regulators who strive to maintain a balance between fostering innovation, protecting consumers, and addressing the potential unintended consequences of disruption. Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, big data analytics, distributed ledger technology, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are creating new ways for consumers to interact—and disrupting traditional business models. It’s an era...

September 8, 2018
Articles, Regulation,
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08Sep

Latin American Local Capital Markets: Challenges and Solutions

By Mauro Miranda (CFA Institute Research Foundation) Economic growth depends on the efficient allocation of resources, including the two main factors of production: labor and capital. Markets, operating on each factor, have allocated these resources in economies worldwide in ways that arguably approach optimality and have fostered economic development for the benefit of billions. Capital markets, both for debt and equity securities, have allowed firms to secure funding for productive uses while providing investors with opportunities for portfolio diversification. The...

September 8, 2018
Articles, Investing, , ,
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08Sep

Still Attached? Are Social Safety Nets Working? Labor Force Participation in European Regions

By Benjamin Hilgenstock (Institute of International Finance) & Zsoka Koczan (International Monetary Fund (IMF)) The paper examines the evolution and drivers of labor force participation in European regions, focusing on the effects of trade and technology. As in the United States, rural regions within European countries saw more pronounced declines (or smaller increases) in participation than urban regions. Unlike in the United States, however, trade and technology, captured here using novel measures of initial exposures to routinization and offshoring, did...

September 8, 2018
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, Slider-Left, ,
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03Sep

What Age Do You Feel? – Subjective Age and Economic Behaviors

By Zihan Ye (Zhejiang University - College of Economics) & Thomas Post (Maastricht University - School of Business and Economics - Department of Finance; Netspa) Building on recent findings in psychology, we study the impact of subjective age (feeling younger or older than one’s chronological age) on economic behaviors. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study we find that subjective age predicts economic behaviors: Individuals with younger age identities have higher work engagement, and their savings profile, as a...

September 3, 2018
Aging, Articles, Savings,
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03Sep

State Pension Accounting Estimates and Strong Public Unions

By Samuel B. Bonsall (Pennsylvania State University - Department of Accounting), Joseph Comprix (Syracuse University) & Karl A. Muller (Pennsylvania State University - Department of Accounting) Concerns are commonly raised that strong public unions extract generous pension benefits from state governments and are the cause of states’ burdensome pension obligations. Prior research (Anzia and Moe 2015) finds evidence supporting such concerns. Consistent with incentives to minimize such perceptions, our findings suggest that state pension plans with stronger public unions select...

September 3, 2018
Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, ,
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03Sep

Pensionomics

By Mario Arturo Ruiz Estrada (University of Malaya: Social Security Research Centre (SSRC)) This paper explores the concept of pensionomics as a prospective tool of pension evaluation. The paper suggests a paradigm shift: a multidisciplinary synthesis of differing perspectives in evaluating pension overall performance based on past work on pension evaluation, incorporating non-economic variables with significant impact on economic growth and social development. The paper suggests a new analytical tool called “Pensions Consistency (PC) Index” that identifies the level of...

September 3, 2018
Articles, Management, Pension design, ,
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August 2018

25Aug

Demographics and Interest Rates in Asia

By Serkan Arslanalp (International Monetary Fund (IMF)), Jaewoo Lee (International Monetary Fund (IMF) - Research Department) & Umang Rawat (International Monetary Fund (IMF)) Demographic developments have been regarded as one important cause of the long-termmovement in global interest rates. This paper provides empirical evidence of therelationship between demographics and interest rates over a wide sample of advanced andemerging market economies. It also finds that capital account openness limits the directsensitivity of a country's interest rates to its own demographics. The results suggest...

August 25, 2018
Aging, Articles, Investing, ,
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25Aug

Graying of U.S. Bankruptcy: Fallout from Life in a Risk Society

By Deborah Thorne (University of Idaho), Pamela Foohey (Indiana University Maurer School of Law), Robert M. Lawless (University of Illinois College of Law) & Katherine M. Porter (University of California - Irvine School of Law) The social safety net for older Americans has been shrinking for the past couple decades. The risks associated with aging, reduced income, and increased healthcare costs, have been off-loaded onto older individuals. At the same time, older Americans are increasingly likely to file consumer bankruptcy,...

August 25, 2018
Aging, Articles, , , , ,
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