Can a small social pension promote labor force participation? : evidence from the Colombia mayor program
By Tobias Pfutze & Carlos Rodríguez-Castelán Full Content: EconBiz
04Feb
February 2017
04Feb
How does pension eligibility affect labor supply in couples?
By Rafael Lalive & Parrotta Pierpaolo Many OECD countries are reforming their pension systems. We investigate how pension eligibility affects labor supply in couples. Inspired by a theoretical framework, we measure how the sharp change in the pension eligibility of both partners affects labor force participation. We find that both partners leave the labor force as they become eligible for a pension. The effect of their own pension eligibility is 12 percentage points for women and 28 percentage points for...
04Feb
Redesigning pension systems: the institutional structure of pension systems should follow population developments
By Marek Gora For decades, pension systems were based on the rising revenue generated by an expanding population (demographic dividend). As changes in fertility and longevity created new population structures, however, the dividend disappeared, but pension systems failed to adapt. They are kept solvent by increasing redistributions from the shrinking working-age population to retirees. A simple and transparent structure and individualization of pension system participation are the key preconditions for an intergenerationally just old-age security system. Full Content: EconBiz
04Feb
Do Non-Monetary Prices Target the Poor? Evidence from a Field Experiment in India
By Bridget Hoffmann This paper uses willingness to pay (WTP) data from a field experiment in Hyderabad, India in 2013 to determine whether non-monetary prices better target health products to the poor than monetary prices. Monetary WTP is increasing in income and non-monetary WTP is weakly decreasing in income. Household fixed effects in a pooled sample of monetary WTP and non-monetary WTP are used to compare the correlation of income and WTP across price types. It is found that non-monetary...
04Feb
Do Pension Plans with Participant Investment Choice Teach Households to Hold More Equity?
By Scott Weisbenner Some retirement plans allow the participant to choose how funds are invested. Having to direct investments may provide the participant with financial education. This paper finds that households covered by pension plans in which the employee chooses investments are significantly more apt to hold stock outside of their retirement plan than are households with pension plans offering no such choice. The effect of investment choice upon non-pension asset allocation cannot be explained by portfolio rebalancing or differences...
04Feb
Workers’ Knowledge of their Pension Coverage: A Reevaluation
By Martha Starr-McCluer & Annika Sundén Because employer-provided pensions represent an important source of income during retirement, accurate information on pension coverage would seem to be crucial for making sound decisions on retirement timing, saving and portfolio allocation. However, previous research suggests that workers’ knowledge of their pension provisions is often incomplete or incorrect. This paper re-examines workers’ knowledge of their pension coverage, using matched employer-employee data from the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances. We find that, while...
04Feb
Workers' Knowledge of their Pension Coverage: A Reevaluation
By Martha Starr-McCluer & Annika Sundén Because employer-provided pensions represent an important source of income during retirement, accurate information on pension coverage would seem to be crucial for making sound decisions on retirement timing, saving and portfolio allocation. However, previous research suggests that workers’ knowledge of their pension provisions is often incomplete or incorrect. This paper re-examines workers’ knowledge of their pension coverage, using matched employer-employee data from the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances. We find that, while...
04Feb
5th Ethiopia economic update : why so idle? – wages and employment in a crowded labor market : draft for public launch
By World Bank Strong economic growth continued in 2014-15, but the drought slowed down Ethiopia’s growth to 8 percent in 2015-16. Exports have had their worst performance in the last decade and the current account balance remained large. Inflation is remarkable stable given the recent drought and even declining; it stood at 5.6 percent in October 2016. Understanding the nature of urban labor markets is important for a successful transition to a manufacturing and service-oriented economy and to further reduce...
04Feb
Pension Coverage in Latin America: trends and determination
By Rafael Rofman & Maria Laura Oliveri This document presents an analysis of pension coverage trends in Latin America for the past decades. Its preparation involved the collection, revision, and processing of household surveys in over 18 countries in the region, spanning a period of almost 40 years in some cases. The main goal of this document is to offer comparable data on pension coverage among the economically active population and the elderly, considering the relevance of several demographic, social,...
04Feb
Social Security in Theory and Practice (II): Efficiency Theories
By Casey B. Mulligan & Xavier Sala-i-Martin 166 countries have some kind of public old age pension.What economic forces create and sustain old age Social Security as a public program? Mulligan and Sala-i-Martin (1999b) document several of the internationally and historically common features of social security programs, and explore "political" theories of Social Security. This paper discusses the "efficiency theories", which view creation of the SS program as a full of partial solution to some market failure. Efficiency explanations of social...