June 2020

Journal of Pension Economics & Finance

By: Monika Bütler, Olivia S. Mitchell, J. Michael Orszag. The Journal of Pension Economics and Finance (JPEF) is the only academic journal focusing on the economics and finance of pensions and retirement income. The ageing population, together with the shrinking workforce, heralds a growing pensions crisis, which has become a key public policy issue in developed countries and elsewhere. JPEF provides a valuable and influential forum for international debate in this area. The journal is co-sponsored by the International Organisation of Pension Supervisors...

The Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic for Pensions

By Charles Sutcliffe COVID-19 and the lockdowns have had a big global economic effect, as well as increasing mortality. We examine the effects of COVID-19 and the resulting relaxations of pension regulations on pension schemes. Those who transfer their pension or withdraw cash from their pension pot while asset prices are depressed by COVID-19 are losers; as are members of defined benefit schemes with a deficit whose employer fails due to COVID-19. The increased mortality from covid-19 will have...

Building better retirement systems in the wake of the global pandemic

By Olivia S. Mitchell In the wake of the global pandemic known as COVID-19, retirees, along with those hoping to retire someday, have been shocked into a new awareness of the need for better risk management tools to handle longevity and aging. This paper offers an assessment of the status quo prior to the spread of the coronavirus, evaluates how retirement systems are faring in the wake of the shock. Next we examine insurance and financial market products that...

Silicon Valley Stories: A sampler of startups, stories, and lessons learned

By Adam Beguelin People think that joining a startup is a surefire way to get rich. The odds are against you, but it does happen. Silicon Valley Stories: A sampler of startups, stories, and lessons learned is about the hits and the misses. It’s about how people handle life in the start-up world. It includes true accounts from inside Inktomi, AOL, Truveo, and a handful of other Silicon Valley startups. As a tenured member of start-up culture, Beguelin...

The Political Economy of Pension Financialisation

By Anke Hassel, Tobias Wiß The Political Economy of Pension Financialisation addresses – for numerous countries – how and why pension reforms have come to rely more on financial markets, how public policy reacted to financial crises, and regulatory variation. The book demonstrates how the process of pension financialisation reveals that pension policy is not only a social policy that affects retirement income, but also a financial policy that impacts savings rates, corporate finance and the economy. The chapters...

May 2020

Pension Finance

By M Barton Waring, Robert C Merton Pension plans around the world are in a state of crisis. U.S. plans alone are facing a total accrued liability funding deficit of almost $4 trillion (of the same order of magnitude as the federal debt), a potential financial catastrophe that ranks among the largest ever seen. It has become clear that many government, corporate, and multi-employer pension sponsors will not be able to cope with this crippling debt and may default...

Allianz pension report 2020 the silver swan

By Allianz Even before the Covid-19 outbreak, societies were becoming more and more fragmented over several social fault lines: culture, education, wealth, place of residence. Many of these overlap: The cosmopolitan, well-educated, wealthy people live in (big) cities, whereas more conservative, low-skilled workers tend to live in the periphery. There is, however, one important social fault line that cuts through all these identities: the generation gap. With demographic and climate change (and now the coronavirus pandemic), the generational...

Social protection responses to the COVID-19 crisis around the world

By ILO This note summarizes the results of the Social Protection Monitor that tracks announcements of social protection measures responding to the possible impacts of the COVID-19 crisis. We will update this note as new data and information become available in this rapidly evolving situation. Disclaimer: Owing to the exceptional circumstances generated by this global health pandemic, there has been intense activity in terms of the breadth of national responses and therefore not all information contained in this document could be...

Informality and the Challenge of Pension Adequacy: Outlook and Reform Options for Peru

By Christoph Freudenberg and Frederik Toscani Past reforms have put the Peruvian pension system on a largely fiscally sustainable path, but the system faces important challenges in providing adequate pension levels for a large share of the population. Using administrative microdata at the affiliate level, we project replacement rates in the defined benefit (DB) and defined contribution (DC) pillars over the next 30 years and simulate the impact of various reform scenarios on the average level and distribution of...

The End of Leisure and Retirement, COVID-19: Innovations, Jobs, Pensions, and Keynes: Guaranteed Income or Future Poverty and Redundancy?

By Niccolo Leo Caldararo The history of the support by society of the aged is discussed in cross cultural and historical context. Various cultural traditions are compared with the forms developed in complex societies from ancient Egypt and Greece and Rome, to China, the Aztec, Inca and Maya, to those of religious organizations, or those developed under different modern ideological systems like capitalism and communism as well as social democratic nations. It is found that the way a...