September 2021
20Sep

The Golden Paper to Fix Pension Systems in MENA Region

By Ebrahim K Ebrahim All Arab countries, except for three, have deficits in their pension funds exceeding 50%. As for the three countries, two of them started their social insurance relatively late and the third one had to significantly recapitalize its fund early last decade. Likewise, these three countries are not immune from deficits of similar proportions during the next two decades if they end up doing the same thing. Up until now, there is one thing all Arab countries...

September 20, 2021
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10Sep

The Surprising Ingredients of Swedish Success – Free Markets and Social Cohesion

By Nima Sanandaji Sweden did not become wealthy through social democracy, big government and a large welfare state. It developed economically by adopting free-market policies in the late 19th century and early 20th century. It also benefited from positive cultural norms, including a strong work ethic and high levels of trust. As late as 1950, Swedish tax revenues were still only around 21 per cent of GDP. The policy shift towards a big state and higher taxes occurred mainly during the...

September 10, 2021
Articles, Investment, Pension design, Pension Management, ,
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10Sep

Horizon Effect on Optimal Retirement Decision

By Junkee Jeon, Minsuk Kwak & Kyunghyun Park We study an optimal consumption, investment, life insurance, and retirement decision of an economic agent who has an option to retire early any time before the mandatory retirement date. We conduct a thorough theoretical analysis for the optimal retirement problem with general utility function in the presence of mandatory retirement date, which leads to the optimal stopping problem in finite horizon. Furthermore, different marginal utility of consumption before and after retirement is...

September 10, 2021
Articles, Payout, Pension design, Retirement Age,
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03Sep

Global Pensions and ESG: Is There A Better Way?

By Luba Nikulina The influence of ESG factors has been growing exponentially in the last five years. This paper explores whether purpose with multiple stakeholders, responsibility for the impact of investments, and system level engagement apply to global pension funds. Aside from government spending, global pension assets represent the largest pool of capital on the planet with the longest time horizon and multiple stakeholders across different generations. The power of influence of this capital is enormous. Many international challenges can...

September 3, 2021
Articles, Investment, Pension design, , ,
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August 2021
31Aug

Focusing on ‘What Should MENA Pension Systems Look Like for Next 50 Years’ Annual Arab Pensions Conference 2021 Convenes in Manama

How should we design the MENA pension systems for the next 50 years? How do we want our children and their children to retire one or two generations from today? This is the theme or big question the highly attended annual Arab Pensions Conference 2021 will be tackling in its next edition on the 16th and 17th of November. Read also Does it Matter to be Informal? Type of employment and political opinions in the MENA region Hosted in Manama digitally...

August 31, 2021
Event, News, Pension design, , , , ,
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26Aug

The New Income Projection Rules for Defined Contribution Plans

By Richard L. Kaplan & Barry Federici The SECURE Act enacted at the end of 2019 requires that defined contribution retirement plans provide plan participants will projections of how much monthly income their accumulated balances will generate upon their retirement. This article analyzes the new Labor Department regulations that go into effect on September 18, 2021 and suggests various revisions, including an explanation of likely tax consequences. Source: SSRN 302 views

August 26, 2021
Articles, Pension design, Regulation, , ,
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26Aug

Retirement and Voluntary Work Provision: Evidence from the Australian Age Pension Reform

By Rong Zhu This paper examines the empirical link between retirement and the supply of volunteer labor, using panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. To identify the causal impact, we exploit a major reform of the Australian Age Pension which has significantly changed the retirement incentives of older people. We find positive and significant effects of retirement status on the voluntary work provision of older men and women. Longer time spent in retirement...

August 26, 2021
Aging, Articles, Pension design, , ,
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23Aug

What is work and how affects retirement?

By Manuel Carvallo In order to properly plan for retirement, we need to have a vision of it. Dreams of our future retirement are never a one size fits all. The retirement vision varies from person to person, and it depends on several factors: personal goals, family situation, and type of work. This last factor will largely determine how one should prepare for retirement. In my previous post I mentioned that retirement plans were originally designed to provide benefits to the long-term employees...

August 23, 2021
Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, ,
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19Aug

Pensions, Income Taxes and Homeownership: A Cross-Country Analysis

By Hans Fehr, Maurice Hofmann & George Kudrna This paper studies the role of pensions and income taxes in determining homeownership and household wealth. It provides a cross-country analysis, using tax and pension policy designs in Germany, the US and Australia. These developed nations have similar incomes per capita but very different homeownership rates, with the US and Australia having much higher homeownership compared to Germany. The question is to what extent the observed differences in homeownership are induced by...

August 19, 2021
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19Aug

Mega-IRAs, Boon or a Bane?

By Albert Feuer Peter Thiel reportedly converted a 1999 Roth IRA investment of $1,700 in PayPal “founder’s shares,” into assets that appeared to be worth $7 billion on June 30, 2021. There are serious questions whether this IRA and other Mega-IRAs are entitled to the IRA tax benefits. The IRS should have the resources to challenge the tax exemption of any Mega-IRAs appearing to violate the current law. These Mega-IRAs will disappear when the IRS prevails. There should also be...

August 19, 2021
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