October 2021
22Oct

Benchmarking Retirement Income Systems Around the World: Which Countries Rank Highest and Why?

By David Knox The variety of retirement income systems around the world is great, with varying dependencies on public-sector pensions, funded private pensions, and savings outside these formal systems. But which are producing the best outcomes? And which are sustainable into the future, as many countries face the effects of a significantly aging population? The Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index considers more than 40 indicators in calculating an index value for the systems in 16 countries covering more than half...

October 22, 2021
Adequacy, Articles, Regulation, Savings, ,
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22Oct

Effects of COVID-19 early release of pension funds: The case of Chile

By Miguel Lorca Amid the extraordinary economic effects of COVID-19, some policymakers have turned to retirement accounts to support individuals in financial hardship. Given the haste, the long-term impacts and their heterogeneity have scarcely been analyzed. Using Monte Carlo simulations on the Chilean Social Protection Survey linked with administrative data, this study quantifies the effects of a 10% early release of pension funds. Each withdrawn dollar brings losses of 1.59 dollars in future retirement savings, reducing monthly pension benefits by...

October 22, 2021
Articles, System Sustainability, , ,
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19Oct

Medidas para restaurar (o no) la sostenibilidad financiera de las pensiones

Por J. Ignacio Conde Ruiz El sistema público de pensiones en España es de reparto, contributivo y de prestación definida. Que sea de reparto significa que en cada momento del tiempo los trabajadores dedican una parte de sus salarios a pagar la pensión de los actuales jubilados, es decir, su recaudación se reparte entre todos los jubilados que tienen derecho a percibir una pensión. Que sea contributivo significa que existe una correspondencia entre las cotizaciones realizadas durante la vida laboral y...

October 19, 2021
Articles, Pensiones Públicas, Sostenibilidad del Sistema, , ,
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15Oct

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Precarious Aging: The Importance of an Equity Response

By Marc A. Garcia, Adriana M. Reyes & Catherine Garcia Older Black, Indigenous, and Latinx adults are at a higher risk of negative COVID-19 outcomes relative to older non-Latinx White adults. Mounting evidence regarding the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color lays bare the effects of long-standing and deeply rooted structural racism in American society. Residential and occupational segregation and unequal access to health-promoting resources such as education, income, wealth, and quality healthcare have exposed and amplified pre-existing...

October 15, 2021
Aging, Articles, , , ,
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15Oct

Pensions and ESG: An Institutional and Historical Perspective

By P. Brett Hammond & Amy O'Brien Sustainable investing is growing into its moment. Funded pensions, which were among the first institutions to respond to sustainability concerns, are showing renewed interest in better ways to reflect responsible investing objectives, along with regulators, asset managers and shareholder groups. Looking back, the principal elements of sustainability—environmental, social and governance (ESG)—all have different origins and took different pathways. Looking across, sustainable investing developed differently depending on region and country. Viewing it today, we...

October 15, 2021
Articles, Investment, , ,
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15Oct

Gender Preferences in Job Vacancies and Workplace Gender Diversity

By David Card, Fabrizio Colella & Rafael Lalive In spring 2005, Austria launched a campaign to inform employers and newspapers that gender preferences in job advertisements were illegal. At the time over 40% of openings on the nation’s largest job-board specified a preferred gender. Over the next year the fraction fell to under 5%. We merge data on filled vacancies to linked employer-employee data to study how the elimination of gender preferences affected hiring and job outcomes. Prior to the...

October 15, 2021
Articles, Labor Market, , ,
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07Oct

Sustainability agreements and antitrust – three criteria to distinguish beneficial cooperation from greenwashing

By Maurits Dolmans This paper discusses European competition law as it applies to agreements between market players to reduce, eliminate, or compensate for greenhouse gas emissions. It places these in an economic context, discusses the relevant provisions of the European treaties and applicable case law of the European Court of Justice. It identifies three broad criteria for the non-application of the prohibition of restrictive agreements, or exemption, to sustainability agreements. Source: SSRN 193 views

October 7, 2021
Articles, Investment, Pension Management, , , ,
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07Oct

Temporal Reframing of Recurring Savings Reduces Perceived Pain and Helps Those with Lower Financial Literacy to Save

By Stephen Shu Steve Thomas & David A. Smith While assessments of the Gig Economy vary in terms of size, growth, and heterogeneity, most studies suggest that this segment of the economy is sizeable, growing, and diverse in terms of types of work. Some concerns in the literature include both the present and future welfare of workers in the Gig Economy. More granular, temporal reframing of savings (e.g., save $5 a day versus $150 a month) has been shown to...

October 7, 2021
Articles, Pension design, Savings, , ,
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07Oct

Income Trajectories in Later Life: Longitudinal Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study

By Olivia S. Mitchell, Robert Clark, Annamaria Lusardi We examine respondents in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to observe how their financial situations unfolded as they aged. We focus on low-income older adults and follow them over time to identify the factors associated with having low income at baseline and thereafter. We find that (a) real income remained relatively stable as individuals approached and entered retirement, and progressed through their retirement years, and (b) labor force participation declined and...

October 7, 2021
Aging, Articles, Pension design, , ,
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September 2021
30Sep

Reforming Public Sector Pensions: Solutions to a growing challenge

By Institute of Economic Affairs Submitter In its final report the Public Sector Pensions Commission finds that the true value of the main unfunded public sector pension schemes is over 40 per cent of salary. The report also finds that a lack of transparency over the true costs of public sector pensions has made it easier to delay reform in the past. Without more transparency, the true costs are unreasonably forced onto future taxpayers. Source: SSRN 290 views

September 30, 2021
Articles, Pension design, System Sustainability, , ,
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