April 2023
21Apr

Retirement Savings Behaviours and Covid-19: Evidence from Thailand

By Paul Gerrans, Sunatharee Lhaopadchan & Sirimon Treepongkaruna This paper utilises administrative data from members of the Thai Government Pension Fund to examine voluntary contributions and investment plan change. We find low overall incidence of both behaviours which increased only modestly during the onset of COVID-19. While the major finding is that members are in the minority if they engage in the behaviour regardless of gender, salary, balance, or experience in the fund, the relative probability varies systematically by member...

April 21, 2023
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21Apr

Shocks to Occupational Pensions and Household Savings

By Francesco Caloia, Mauro Mastrogiacomo & Irene Simonetti This paper studies the saving response of households to shocks in the capital position of their pension fund. Using survey panel data matched to supervisory data of Dutch occupational pension funds for a period that involved three major economic crises, we provide evidence of an increase in savings driven by a worsening of the financial position of pension funds. The identification strategy exploits cross-sectional and time variations in the funding ratios of...

April 21, 2023
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05Apr

How America Saves 2022

By Vanguard Over the past decade, retirement plan sponsors have increasingly turned to automatic solutions to influence employee retirement saving behavior. As a result, plan participation rates have increased, automatic enrollment designs have become stronger, and participant portfolio construction has continued to improve with more age-appropriate asset mixes and less extreme equity allocations. During 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic continued to impact many parts of the economy. While it pushed to recover, the economy faced prominent headwinds that stoked several forms of...

April 5, 2023
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05Apr

Mandatory Pension Contributions: Effects on Household Consumption and Savings

By Linda Sandris Larsen, Ulf Nielsson, Mara Nutu & Jesper Rangvid Using rich register data from Denmark, we study whether people save enough to maintain their pre-retirement level of consumption during retirement. We find that 77% of retirees do. This high fraction is driven by mandatory labour market contributions. The 23% of individuals who do not save enough to maintain their pre-retirement level of consumption are less likely to have mandatory pension schemes and do not compensate for the lack...

April 5, 2023
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March 2023
31Mar

ESG and Climate Change: Pension Fund Dos and Don’ts

By Randy Bauslaugh Pension fund administrators have a fiduciary duty to prudently manage financial risks and opportunities when investing plan assets and when managing plan operations that are paid from the pension fund. This includes the financial risks and opportunities associated with climate change and other environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. But what are the legal dos and don’ts? Plan fiduciaries will always be on solid legal ground if they take ESG information into account for financial purposes – to...

March 31, 2023
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24Mar

Retirement preparedness during uncertain times

By Fidelity 2023 RSA Executive Summary Fidelity’s Retirement Savings Assessment is built upon comprehensive data from more than 3,500 survey responses that are run through the extensive retirement planning platform Fidelity uses every day with customers. The result: a numerical indicator showing whether savers are on track to meet estimated retirement income needs. The score places households into four categories on the preparedness spectrum, based on a household’s ability to cover estimated retirement expenses in a down market. Read book here

March 24, 2023
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10Mar

The Influence of Financial Literacy on Retirement Planning in South Africa

By Nyasha Tapiwa Dhlembeu, Mamekwa Katlego Kekana & Mpinda Freddy Mvita Background: A shift in the retirement planning and pensions landscape has created an enormous responsibility for individuals to plan for their retirement provision actively. Very few South Africans reach the average retirement age of 65 years with sufficient funds to sustain themselves during their retirement. Purpose/objective: Using secondary data from the 2011 South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS), this study aims to examine the influence financial literacy has on the...

March 10, 2023
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February 2023
08Feb

Pension Withdrawals Drain Savings in Chile and Peru

By Richard Francis, Kelli Bissett-Tom & Christopher Dychala Peru, Chile and Bolivia have allowed early withdrawals from their funds as a source of relief for households and to support recoveries during the pandemic and the global price shock. But these have had negative financial and confidence ramifications, contributing to downgrades of Peru in 2021 and Chile in 2020. Longstanding private pension funds have been important supports for sovereign creditworthiness where they exist in Latin America. Pension fund assets have supported sovereign...

February 8, 2023
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08Feb

Early Pension Withdrawals in Chile During the Pandemic

By Olga Fuentes, Olivia S. Mitchell & Félix Villatoro Chile, with one of the largest and best funded defined contribution programs in Latin America, held over USD $200 bn in assets at the onset of the Covid-19 crisis, or more than 80% of GDP. Reacting to populist pressures during the pandemic, however, the government gave non-retired participants three separate opportunities to tap into their retirement accounts, leaving some 4.2 million participants with zero retirement savings and draining around $50 bn...

February 8, 2023
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January 2023
24Jan

Financial regret at older ages and longevity awareness

By Abigail Hurwitz & Olivia S. Mitchell Older people often express regret about financial decisions made earlier in life that left them susceptible to old-age insecurity. Prior work has explored one outcome, saving regret, or peoples’ expressed wish that they had saved more earlier in life. The present paper extends attention to five additional areas regarding financial decisions, examining whether older Americans also regret not having insured better, claimed benefits and quit working too early, and becoming financially dependent on...

January 24, 2023
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