January 2018

22Jan

The Devil You Know: A Survey Examining How Retail Investors Seek Out and Use Financial Information and Investment Advice

By Christine Sgarlata Chung (Albany Law School) Everyday, people across the United States make decisions that will affect their financial futures — e.g., borrowing money to buy a house, go to college, or start a business; investing in the stock market to save for retirement; using check cashing services or payday lenders rather than accounts at banks or credit unions for day-to-day banking needs, and the like. Traditional tenets of financial economics and investment theory assume that people make fully...

January 22, 2018
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22Jan

Simulating Pension Income Scenarios with Pencalc: An Illustration for India's National Pension System

By Renuka Sane (Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi) & William Joseph Price (World Bank) This paper sets out initial results from a new modeling exercise for Defined Contribution (DC) pensions. It develops a package called penCalc based on the open source software language R, which is popular in the academic and modeling communities. All the coding is made freely available. The tool is illustrated for India's DC National Pension System. The aim is not to present the perfect model for...

January 22, 2018
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22Jan

Simulating Pension Income Scenarios with Pencalc: An Illustration for India’s National Pension System

By Renuka Sane (Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi) & William Joseph Price (World Bank) This paper sets out initial results from a new modeling exercise for Defined Contribution (DC) pensions. It develops a package called penCalc based on the open source software language R, which is popular in the academic and modeling communities. All the coding is made freely available. The tool is illustrated for India's DC National Pension System. The aim is not to present the perfect model for...

January 22, 2018
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22Jan

Macroeconomic Implications of Changes in Social Security Rules

By Bilal Bagis (Bingol University; Istanbul 29 Mayis University Department of Economics) The Turkish social insurance system has been feverishly debated for years, particularly through its burden on the economy. The most recent reform is an attempt to neutralize the deterioration within the social security system and its effects on the economy. After the recent reform, ‘the way that retirement benefits are calculated’ is changed unfavorably for workers and the minimum age for retirement is increased. In particular, for an...

January 22, 2018
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08Jan

Securing the Future for Old Age in the Asia and Pacific Region: Short-Term and Historical Challenges

By Christian Aspalter (BNU-HKBU United International College, Zhuhai, China) This paper sets out to summarize major conundrums, and some of their solutions, in pension reform policy of the years ahead, with particular reference to the Asia-Pacific Region, and here again, Japan and Thailand. The repercussions for non-action pertaining to the reform and overhaul of public pension systems go far beyond the realm of social policy and economic development. The twin-issue of old-age poverty and fiscal sustainability of public pension systems...

January 8, 2018
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, System Sustainability, , , ,
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08Jan

Addressing Financial Illiteracy Through Financial Innovation: The Case for Goal-Specific Bonds the Embed Inflation and Compounding

By Arun Muralidhar (AlphaEngine Global Investment Solutions; George Washington University) Financial illiteracy is widespread and leads to bad financial decisions (high debt, insufficient savings). Individuals cannot answer basic questions about inflation, compounding, and diversification. While financial literacy can be enhanced, are individuals teachable, and if so, what should they be taught and how lasting is the training? Prof. Merton suggests that some individuals can only be helped with innovation; Prof. Richard Thaler has argued for making the financial system more...

January 8, 2018
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