June 2020
08Jun

A “New Deal” for Informal Workers in Asia

By Era Dabla-Norris, Changyong Rhee Full or partial lockdowns to curb the spread of COVID-19 are having crippling effects on businesses and workers across Asia, as elsewhere. Among the most vulnerable of the workers are the ones working in part-time and temporary jobs without social insurance, and in sectors of the economy that are neither taxed, nor regulated by any form of government. Known as informal workers, they are particularly vulnerable to dramatic collapses of income and loss...

June 8, 2020
Articles, Labor Market, , , , , ,
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08Jun

Building better retirement systems in the wake of the global pandemic

By Olivia S. Mitchell In the wake of the global pandemic known as COVID-19, retirees, along with those hoping to retire someday, have been shocked into a new awareness of the need for better risk management tools to handle longevity and aging. This paper offers an assessment of the status quo prior to the spread of the coronavirus, evaluates how retirement systems are faring in the wake of the shock. Next we examine insurance and financial market products that...

June 8, 2020
Articles, Pension design, System Sustainability, , , , , ,
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05Jun

An Introduction to Pensionomics

By Mario Arturo Ruiz Estrada, Evangelos Koutronas Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of pensionomics as a prospective tool for pension evaluation. This paper suggests a paradigm shift – a multi-disciplinary synthesis of differing perspectives in evaluating pension’s overall performance based on past work on pension evaluation – incorporating non-economic variables with significant impact on economic growth and social development. Design/methodology/approach – This paper suggests a new analytical tool called “Pensions Consistency (PC)...

June 5, 2020
Articles, Pension design, , ,
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05Jun

Can Low Retirement Savings Be Rationalized?

By John B. Shoven, Sita Slavov, John G. Watson Simple presentations of the life cycle model often suggest a constant level of real consumption in retirement. Similarly, financial planners commonly suggest that people save for retirement in such a way as to enable them to maintain a level retirement standard of living equal to their standard of living while working. However, constant consumption with age is only optimal under the precise and unlikely condition that the subjective rate of...

June 5, 2020
Articles, Pension design, Savings, ,
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05Jun

Exporting Financial Services in Latin America and the Caribbean

By Adrian Gonzalez, Carolina Lopez-Rocha, Rongpeng Yang, Marilyne Youbi, Inés Zabalbeitia Múgica According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), trade in services has become the most dynamic segment of world trade, growing more quickly than trade in goods. While travel remains the most exported service both worldwide and in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), other services are becoming relevant for both developed and developing economies. Among them, financial services is one of the most important categories in terms...

June 5, 2020
Articles, Regulation, ,
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May 2020
29May

The Effect of Workplace Pensions on Household Saving: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Taiwan

By Tzu‐Ting Yang Population aging causes financial imbalances in pay‐as‐you‐go public pension programs. To remedy this problem, while ensuring the adequacy of retirement savings for employees, many countries complement or substitute public pensions by regulating their workplace pensions. This article exploits a pension reform in Taiwan that has mandated, since 2005, that all private‐sector employers contribute at least 6 percent of an employee's monthly wage to an individual pension account. I use workers in the unaffected sectors as a...

May 29, 2020
Articles, Pension design, Savings, ,
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29May

Integrating Social Insurance and Social Assistance Programs for the Future World of Labor

By Robert J. Palacios, David A. Robalino Given the prevalence of informal labor, most countries have combined contributory social insurance programs (pensions, unemployment benefits, and health insurance), with non-contributory insurance programs and several types of "safety nets." All of these programs involve different types of subsidies and taxes, sometimes implicit. Because of design problems and the lack of coordination/integration between programs, these subsidies/taxes tend to cause four problems: 1) they can reduce incentives to contribute to mandatory insurance programs...

May 29, 2020
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29May

Retirement Reforms: Occupational Strain and Health

By Kantha Dayaram, Alistair McGuire A concurrent increase in the demand for state age pensions and health care has led to reforms in delaying retirement. We employ thirteen waves of longitudinal data to examine the mental and physical health effects of Australian men and women at “early” and “traditional” retirement. We use before and after propensity score matching (PSM) estimates between treatment and control groups of retired and not retired individuals aged 60 and 65 years. The results indicate...

May 29, 2020
Articles, Regulation, State Pensions, State Pensions, , ,
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22May

The Shifting Ground of Pension Design: Reflections on Risks and Reporting

By Robert D. Baldwin Debates about the relative merits of defined-benefit (DB) and defined-contribution (DC) pension plans have been a prominent part of pension discourse over the past forty years. The intensity of the debate has ebbed and flowed over the years but has been more intense in recent years as there has been a shift from DB to DC plans in Canada. This shift has left the remaining members of DB plans feeling threatened and, for many, the...

May 22, 2020
Aging, Articles, , , , ,
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22May

Coronavirus and Older Adults: A Highly Vulnerable Group

By María Laura Oliveri Older adults are among the largest groups at risk for the coronavirus and they have the highest fatality rate in several countries. Learn about the resources and materials that we offer to guide caregiving and public policy on aging and long-term care in countries in the region. Nursing Homes: Dangerous Infection Hotspots Since the outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic, it has been confirmed that older adults are the most vulnerable age group. They are...

May 22, 2020
Aging, Articles, , , ,
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