February 2017

04Feb

Ageing and Poverty in Africa and the Role of Social Pensions

By Nanak Kakwani & Kalanidhi Subbarao In many low income African countries, three factors are placing an undue burden on the elderly. First, the burden on the elderly has enormously increased with the increase in mortality of prime age adults due to HIV AIDS pandemic and regional conflicts. Second, the traditional safety net of the extended family has become ineffective and unreliable for the elderly. Third, in a few countries, the elderly are called upon to shoulder the responsibility of...

February 4, 2017
Aging, Articles, Pension design, ,
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04Feb

The Voluntary Contributions Model–Study Regarding The Completion Of The Length Of Service

By Constantin Anghelache & Ana CARP In this article we present the study on “Buying years of service (seniority)” which is a particular case of the voluntary contributions model proposed by the author in a previous work. In the case study presented in this article, we show the groups of people addressed by Law no.186 / 2016 for “buying years of service”, we quantify the results of applying this legislative measure and we estimate the implications on the evolution of...

February 4, 2017
Articles, Pension design, System Sustainability, ,
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04Feb

Aging, Social Security Design, and Capital Accumulation

By Antoine Dedry, Harun Onder & Pierre Pestieau This paper analyzes the impact of aging on capital accumulation and welfare in a country with a sizable unfunded social security system. Using a two-period overlapping generation model with potentially endogenous retirement decisions, the paper shows that the type of aging, i.e. declining fertility or increasing longevity, and the type of unfunded social security system, i.e. defined contributions or defined benefits, are important in understanding this impact. Moreover, the analysis provides a...

February 4, 2017
Adequacy, Articles, Pension design,
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04Feb

The Role of Social Security in Overall Retirement Resources: A Distributional Perspective

By Alice Henriques & John Sabelhaus During recent decades, the US employer-sponsored retirement system has undergone a major shift from primarily defined benefit (DB)-type plans to primarily defined contribution (DC)-type plans. Furthermore, in the past decade, participation in employer retirement plans has fallen, particularly for younger and lower-income families. In light of this, there is growing concern that wealth accumulation through employer-provided pension plans is falling short, especially for the bottom half of the income distribution. However, focusing only on...

February 4, 2017
Articles, Pension design, Regulation, , ,
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04Feb

Non-Contributory Pensions Number-Gender Effects on Poverty and Household Decisions

By Miguel Ángel Borrella, Mariano Bosch & Marcello Sartarelli Non-contributory pensions, designed to reduce old-age poverty particularly in countries with low contributory coverage, may induce a variety of household behavioural responses. This paper tests whether they vary with beneficiaries number and gender in Bolivia, one of the countries with the lowest contributory coverage worldwide. Taking advantage of a discontinuity in eligibility at age 60 in the Renta Dignidad pension, we estimate these effects by using a bi-dimensional regression discontinuity design,...

February 4, 2017
Articles, Pension design, Savings, , ,
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04Feb

What Enron Means for the Management and Control of the Modern Business Corporation: Some Initial Reflections

The Enron case challenges some of the core beliefs and practices that have underpinned various positions in the debates about corporate law and governance, including mergers and acquisitions, since the 1980s. In particular, Enron raises at least the following problems for the received model of corporate governance: First, it provides another set of reasons to question the strength of the efficient market hypothesis, here, the company's dizzyingly high stock price despite transparently irrational reliance on its auditors' compromised certification. Second, it...

February 4, 2017
Articles, Investing, Pension design, ,
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04Feb

Longevity Risk Management for Life and Variable Annuities: Effectiveness of Static Hedging Using Longevity Bonds and Derivatives

By Michael Sherris & Andrew Ngai For many years the longevity risk of individuals has been underestimated as survival probabilities improved across the developed world. The uncertainty and volatility of future longevity has posed significant risk issues for both individuals and product providers of annuities and pensions. This paper investigates the effectiveness of static hedging strategies for longevity risk management using longevity bonds and derivatives (q-forwards) for the retail products: life annuity, deferred life annuity, indexed life annuity and variable...

February 4, 2017
Articles, Investing, Pension design
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04Feb

Technical Review Panel for the Pension Insurance Modeling System (PIMS)

By Olivia S. Mitchell, Christopher Geczy, Robert Novy-Marx, Raimond Maurer, Donald E. Fuerst, Christopher Bone, Donald J. Segal, Martin G. Clarke, Frank J. Fabozzi, Deborah Lucas & David F. Babbel In April of 2013, the Pension Research Council of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania convened a Technical Review Panel, comprising ten experts whose task it was to review the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s (PBGC) Pension Insurance Modeling System (PIMS), including inputs, outputs, and model assumptions. The review...

February 4, 2017
Articles, Corporate Governance, Pension design,
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04Feb

Are ‘Voluntary’ Self-Employed Better Prepared for Retirement than ‘Forced’ Self-Employed? The Case of the Netherlands and Germany

By Douglas Hershey, Hendrik van Dalen, Weiteke Conen & Kene Henkens When it comes to financial preparation for retirement, self-employed workers in many European countries face unique challenges not encountered by traditional wage earners. This is particularly true for self-employed workers who do not supervise subordinate personnel. This is the case because many self-employed individuals in nations such as the Netherlands and Germany do not have large-scale access to employer-sponsored pensions, which are a mainstay of pension support for most...

February 4, 2017
Adequacy, Articles, Labor Market, Pension design,
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04Feb

Workplace-Linked Pensions for an Aging Demographic

By Olivia S. Mitchell & John Piggott Pensions and population aging intersect in two ways. First, demographic change threatens the sustainability of traditional pay-as-you-go social security pensions, leaving workplace-linked pensions with a greater role in retirement provision. Second, as the Baby Boom generation enters retirement, new challenges arise around its retirement support. This chapter reviews some of the implications of population aging for workplace pensions in this new environment, outlines market considerations important for workplace-related pension design for the future,...

February 4, 2017
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, , , ,
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