May 2025
09May

The Singular Role of Public Pension Funds in Corporate Governance

By Jill E. Fisch & Jeff Schwartz With more than $5 trillion in assets, public pension funds are significant players in financial markets. Like private asset managers, public pension fund managers are typically expected to exercise their discretion over investing and engagement to serve the interests of the funds’ beneficiaries exclusively, a model that we term “beneficiary primacy.” To this end, beneficiary primacy imposes fiduciary duties on fund managers to maximize the economic value of the fund. We argue that...

May 9, 2025
Articles, System Characterization, , ,
Read more...
09May

Beyond the Bottom Line: How ESG Engagement Reshapes Pension Fund Strategy

By Allen Mendenhall & Daniel Sutter The study suggests that pension funds have developed methods to advance ESG objectives without significantly changing their investment portfolios. This approach enables them to influence corporate behavior while maintaining financial positions. However, all pensions and investors may suffer reduced returns when activism undermines value-creating investment. Pension systems that merely engage, rather than divest, may not underperform compared to other funds, but their tactics allow government-backed entities to exert extraordinary influence without sufficient accountability or...

May 9, 2025
Articles, Investment, , , ,
Read more...
09May

Participation in Pension Programs in Low and Middle Income Countries

By John Giles, Clement Joubert & Tomoaki Tanaka Low- and middle-income countries are aging rapidly but stagnation of growth in participation in pension programs, due to widespread informal employment, presents a major fiscal challenge. Some claim that improving the design of pension program rules can encourage more pension contributions, while others push for universal non-contributory pensions. This paper reviews the recent academic literature on the determinants of active participation in pension systems in high-informality settings. An emerging body of evidence...

May 9, 2025
Articles, Pension design, ,
Read more...

April 2025
25Apr

Digital Transformation of Public Pensions a Case Study of Four European Countries

By Alina Mihaela This paper delves into the pension systems of four European nations – Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Romania – offering a comprehensive analysis of their respective structures, digitalization efforts and potential for harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) for public benefit. It paints a vivid portrait of the various approaches to pension systems and digitalization strategies in these four European countries. It illuminates the potential of AI and technology to drive progress in the public sector, ultimately improving citizen well-being...

April 25, 2025
Articles, Pension design, , , ,
Read more...
25Apr

Varying effects of public pensions: Pension spending and old-age employment under different pension regimes

By Kun Lee Socioeconomic consequences of pension reforms have often been discussed without careful consideration of institutional contexts, despite the fact that institutional designs of public pensions differ substantially across countries. This study argues that the outcomes of pension reforms vary depending on the institutional structure of public pensions, by showing that the associations between public pension spending and old-age employment rates of different socio-demographic groups vary across different institutional contexts. Using time-series cross-section data from 20 European countries and...

April 25, 2025
Articles, Labor Market, , , , ,
Read more...
25Apr

The role of CEOs in the sustainability of defined benefit pension plans

By Joanne Horton, Paraskevi Vicky Kiosse, Maria Koumenta & Evisa Mitrou The future of defined benefit (DB) pensions is a hotly debated topic in reward management. Drawing on agency and managerial power theories, the conditions under which CEOs can affect their sustainability have been examined. We show that when the CEO is a member of the same DB plan as their employees or when the CEO is both a member and a trustee of the plan, this affects the agency and power...

April 25, 2025
Articles, Pension Management, , ,
Read more...
16Apr

Awareness of the Government-Introduced Universal Pension Scheme Among the Adult Population in Bangladesh: A Nationwide Cross-Sectional Survey

By Sharmin Rima, Md. Mahir Faysal, Abdullah Al Mamun, Khadija Akter Sonia, Hossna Tasmia Monia, Anika Tahseen Nuva, Ahbab Mohammad Fazle Rabbi, Abdullah-Al-Mamun & Mohammad Hossain The Universal Pension Scheme (UPS) was introduced in Bangladesh in August 2023 to address economic security concerns for its growing older adults. Despite the government's numerous promotional efforts, the response rate to UPS remains modest. This study aimed to investigate awareness of the UPS among the Bangladeshi population. The study's sample size was 1624,...

April 16, 2025
Articles, Pension design, , ,
Read more...
16Apr

Older Workers Face New Risks because of the COVID-19 Recession

By Siavash Radpour, Aida Farmand & Teresa Ghilarducci For the large cohort of older workers, the significant difference between the COVID-19 recession and previous ones is the combined effect of the economic recession and the health risks of the COVID-19 outbreak. Older workers are facing the high health risks of working during a pandemic, on the one hand, as well as the risk of losing their jobs, on the other hand, which can lead to significantly lower wages in the...

April 16, 2025
Aging, Articles, , , ,
Read more...
16Apr

Population Aging, Digital Financial Inclusion, Development Strategies and Economic Resilience

By Dongsong Cai, Ling Long, WanHuan Cai & Xin Wang As China enters into a deeply aging society, China's demographic development has come to an unprecedented stage of great transition, which also has an impact on economic resilience. Based on the perspective of new structural economics, the relationship between population aging and economic resilience is explored. Meanwhile, empirical tests using provincial panel data find that, firstly, there is a positive effect of population aging on economic resilience, i.e., population aging...

April 16, 2025
Aging, Articles, , ,
Read more...
11Apr

Optimal Investment-Consumption and Retirement Choice with Labor and Pension Incomes

By Hyun Jin Jang & Seon Hwa Lee This study examines lifetime optimal investment, consumption, and retirement timing decisions under a heterogeneous consumption utility function and the presence of pension earnings. Using the duality method, we derive the optimal wealth, investment-consumption strategies, and voluntary retirement region. Through simulation analysis, we assess the impact of pensions on these decisions. Our findings highlight the critical role of pensions in retirement planning, alongside wages and labor costs. Notably, pension benefits encourage earlier voluntary...

April 11, 2025
Articles, Corporate Governance, Diseño de Pensiones, Edad de Retiro, Envejecimiento Poblacional, Funding, Gobierno Corporativo, Inversión, Labor Market, Manejo de Pensiones, Mercado Laboral, Operaciones, PPI’s original Op-Eds, Regulación, Sostenibilidad, Sostenibilidad del Sistema, Suficiencia, Supervision, Sustainability, , ,
Read more...