May 2019

Pension Fund Risk Management: Financial and Actuarial Modeling

By Marco Micocci, Greg N Gregoriou, Giovanni Batista Masala As pension fund systems decrease and dependency ratios increase, risk management is becoming more complex in public and private pension plans. Pension Fund Risk Management: Financial and Actuarial Modeling sheds new light on the current state of pension fund risk management and provides new technical tools for addressing pension risk from an integrated point of view. Divided into four parts, the book first presents the correct measurement of risk...

Retirement and Social Security

By Giam Cipriani, Tamara Fioroni In this paper, we analyse the effects of demographic change on a PAYG pension system, financed with a defined contribution scheme. In particular we examine the relationship between retirement, fertility and pensions in a three-period overlapping generations model. We focus on both the case of mandatory retirement and the case where the retirement age is freely chosen. In the case of mandatory retirement, increasing longevity has an unambiguously negative impact on fertility and pension...

Selfies for Portugal- An innovative Pan European Retirement Solution

By Robert C. Merton, Arun Muralidhar, Rui Seybert P Ferreira With a rapidly aging population, Portugal faces some serious pension challenges including a Social Security system which is under pressure, and pension benefits gradually approaching levels that will require individuals to supplement Social Security with private savings. In addition, Portugal has a low rate of financial literacy and hence transferring the responsibility of retirement planning to the general population runs a major risk of many individuals retiring poor. While some...

Mobile Coverage and its Impact on Digital Financial Services

By Leon Perlman, Michael Wechsler Digital Financial Services (DFS) is a relatively recent mobile-centric financial inclusion innovation in developing. Using ubiquitous mobile phones as the means of service access (primarily through 2G narrowband services, with broadband 3G and 4G potentially available). DFS provides the unbanked and underserved - many of whom live in rural areas - with access to basic financial services provided by banks and nonbanks such as mobile network operators and third party DFS providers (DFSPs)....

Retirement Choices by State and Local Public Sector Employees: The Role of Eligibility and Financial Incentives

Por Leslie E. Papke I analyze the effects of state public pension parameters on the retirement of public employees. Using a panel data set of public sector workers from 12 waves of the Health and Retirement Study, I model the probability of retirement as a function of pension wealth at early and normal retirement eligibility and Social Security coverage in the public sector job. I find that becoming eligible for early retirement, or receiving an early-out offer, significantly increases the...

Financial Literacy and Saving for Retirement among Kenyan Households

By Teresa Schützeichel In this paper I examine financial literacy and saving for retirement in Kenya using the household survey of 2016 from FinAccess Kenya. I use probit regressions to determine the effect financial literacy has on individuals saving regularly as well as saving for retirement. My findings show that households with higher levels of financial literacy will tend to have a higher likelihood to save on a regular basis and subsequently save for retirement. I find that women, the...

Towards a New Pensions Settlement: The International Experience: Volume 3

By Gregg McClymont, Andy Tarrant. In a world of ageing populations, and in the midst of a global shift from defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC) pensions, the onus is increasingly on individuals rather than employers to bear the risks of retirement provision. This book weighs the experiences of eight nations across the Americas, Asia and Europe, who have in common early adoption of DC pensions, but very different experiences of mitigation of that risk by the state, either...

A Lifetime of Changes: State Pensions and Work Incentives at Older Ages in the UK, 1948-2018

By James Banks, Carl Emmerson We describe the history of state pension policy in the UK since 1948 and calculate summary measures of the generosity of the system over time and the degree to which the it created implicit taxes on, or subsidies to, work at older ages. The time series of these measures, calculated separately for ’example-type’ individuals of different birth cohorts, education and sexes, are then related to the time-series of employment rates at older ages for the equivalent...

Institutional Design of Pension Systems and Individual Behavior: How do Households Respond?

By Renata Herrerias (Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) - Department of Business Administration), Guillermo Zamarripa (Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM)). Mexico introduced a Defined Contribution (DC) Pension System in 1997. We analyzed the behavior of affiliated workers under the institutional design of the reformed system. Before the reform, 75% of affiliated workers could receive a lifetime annuity upon retirement; we project that under the new rules only 30% of participants will be able to transform savings into...

April 2019

Fair Pensions

By Ilja Boelaars (University of Chicago) & Dirk Broeders (De Nederlandsche Bank; Maastricht University) This paper examines the allocation of market risk in a general class of collective pension arrangements: Collective Defined Contribution (CDC) schemes. In a CDC scheme participants collectively share funding risk through benefit level adjustments. There is a concern that, if not well designed, CDC schemes are unfair and will lead to an unintended redistribution of wealth between participants and, in particular, between generations. We define a...