November 2019

Longevity Risk and Retirement Income Planning

By Patrick J. Collins, Huy D. Lam, Josh Stampfli The past 50 years have seen an abundance of research on retirement planning and longevity risk. Reviewed here is the academic side of the research and its varied viewpoints and nuances. The evolution of retirement risk models, retirement portfolio problems and solutions, and annuities are some of the many topics covered. Get the book here

A Two-Step Mixed Pension System: How to Reinvent Social Security with the Help of Notional Accounts and Term Annuities

By Inmaculada Domínguez-Fabián,Pierre Devolder, Francisco del Olmo García, Jose A Herce The change in economic and sociodemographic reality, characterized by a continuous increase in longevity, the consequences of the economic crisis, and the lack of adequate adjustments of social security retirement pension systems everywhere, entails risks for workers and the social security systems themselves. Many reforms of public pension systems have been carried out in recent years, based on modifying system parameters and structural changes. Some reforms aim at...

A micro-macro economic analysis of pension auto-enrolment options

By Maxime Bercholz, Adele Bergin, Tim Callan, Abian Garcia Rodriguez, Claire Keane Like many other countries, Ireland faces challenges in relation to the adequacy and sustainability of pensions. These challenges have been examined in detail in a series of reports (Government of Ireland, 2007; OECD, 2014; Government of Ireland, 2018a). All of these reports identify pension coverage in the private sector as a key issue. Burke and Gilhawley (2018) estimate that only 30% of the private sector in Ireland had a supplementary pension1 in 2017....

October 2019

Don’t Save for Retirement: A Millennial’s Guide to Financial Freedom

By Daniel Ameduri Baby boomers are always giving millennials advice on the importance of saving for retirement. But Daniel Ameduri says that the results are in for the retirement experiment of the last 75 years and they’re really bad. When he was twenty-seven years old, Daniel was on the brink of bankruptcy. A decade later, he’s a multi-millionaire, having taught himself about economics, investing, and other money matters that he never learned at school or at home. The expert...

Social Pensions and Market Values: A Conflict?

By Quentin Detienne, Elmar Schmidt Social occupational pension schemes, i.e. compulsory pension schemes that are the result of collective bargaining, fulfil an important social function. At the same time, they seem to conflict with some fundamental single market tenets, such as the European Union (EU) Single Market’s four fundamental freedoms and competition law principles. In this respect, occupational pension schemes in the Member States seem to embody the inherent tensions contained within the EU’s social market economy: a clash...

Secure Retirement: Connecting Financial Theory and Human Behavior

By Jacques Lussier Investors fear return uncertainty and drawdowns associated with owning relatively risky asset classes, such as equity. The fact that greater risk is associated with greater expected return does not preclude the possibility that realized returns may be far less than a low-risk asset could provide, even with horizons as long as 5 to 10 years. Fear prompts the average investor to sometimes act against his own best interest. Therefore, the average investor’s portfolio often underperforms a...

Designing for Behavior Change: Applying Psychology and Behavioral Economics

By Stephen Wendel A new wave of products is helping people change their behavior and daily routines, whether it's exercising more (Jawbone Up), taking control of their finances (HelloWallet), or organizing their email (Mailbox). This practical guide shows you how to design these types of products for users seeking to take action and achieve specific goals. Stephen Wendel, HelloWallet's head researcher, takes you step-by-step through the process of applying behavioral economics and psychology to the practical problems of product...

Effects of Taxes and Safety Net Pensions on Life-Cycle Labor Supply, Savings and Human Capital: The Case of Australia

By Michael P. Keane, Fedor Iskhakov In this paper we structurally estimate a life-cycle model of consumption/savings, labor supply and retirement, using data from the Australian HILDA panel. We use the model to evaluate effects of the Australian aged pension system and tax policy on labor supply, consumption and retirement decisions. Our model accounts for human capital accumulation via learning by doing, as well as wealth accumulation and decumulation over the life cycle, uninsurable wage risk, credit constraints, a...

Motivated Saving: The Impact of Projections on Retirement Saving Intentions

By George Smyrnis, Hazel Bateman, Loretti Dobrescu, Ben Rhodri Newell, Susan Thorp The implications of current balance information for retirement provision are considerably difficult to grasp or anticipate. We study how balance and/or income projections motivate the voluntary savings intentions of pension plan participants over a sequence of ten choices. To this effect, we collect savings intentions from 1,615 respondents aged 25-57 years via an online experimental survey that compares four different formats for retirement account information. The formats...

The Customer Centricity Playbook: Implement a Winning Strategy Driven by Customer Lifetime Value

By Peter Fader, Sarah E. Toms How did global gaming company Electronic Arts go from being named “Worst Company in America” to clearing a billion dollars in profit? They discovered a simple truth—and acted on it: Not all customers are the same, regardless of how they appear on the surface. In The Customer Centricity Playbook, Wharton School professor Peter Fader and Wharton Interactive’s executive director Sarah Toms help you see your customers as individuals rather than a monolith,...