September 2019

05Sep

The road to bankruptcy: Romania’s fiscal deficit to reach 8 pct of GDP by 2022 if the new pension law is implemented, IMF says

The new pension law could double Romania’s already sizable fiscal deficit, which could reach 8 percent of GDP by 2022, and raise external financing needs to excessive levels if it will be implemented as is without offsetting policy measures, International Monetary Fund (IMF) experts warn. For 2019, IMF estimates a fiscal deficit of 3.7 percent of GDP in Romania. The government has enacted a new law that will double the pillar I pension benefits by 2022, without yet spelling...

September 5, 2019
News, Slider, , , ,
Read more...
04Sep

Ecuadorian Retirees demand Payment of their Pensions

Dozens of retirees from the National Electricity Corporation (CNEL) today demanded that President Lenin Moreno's government pay their pensions through the Ecuadorian Social Security Institute (IESS). New demonstrators joined the pensioner's hunger strike in Rocafuerte Square, in the center of Guayaquil, about 267 kilometers from the capital, who are claiming that they have received incomplete pension payments for the past decade. In the opinion of several strikers, the IESS calculated the retirement pension based on the unified basic salary...

September 4, 2019
News, Slider, , ,
Read more...
03Sep

Top 20 pension funds’ AUM declines for first time in seven years

Assets under management (AUM) at the world's 300 largest pension funds fell in value by 0.4% to a total of US$18 trillion in 2018, in sharp contrast to an increase of 15.1% in 2017, according to the latest World 300 research from the Thinking Ahead Institute. The research, conducted in conjunction with Pensions & Investments, a leading U.S. investment newspaper, shows that the value of the top 20 pension funds' AUM fell by 1.6% in 2018, equating to 40.7%...

September 3, 2019
News, Slider, ,
Read more...
03Sep

South Korea. Stalled reform

After 10 months of discussion, a committee on national pension reform last week suggested three options, all of which fall short of ensuring the long-term sustainability of the pension scheme, now under increasing strain. Differences in views between labor and business representatives barred the panel formed in October under the Economic, Social and Labor Council from working out a single proposal. The first option calls for freezing the income replacement rate, which is set to be lowered to 40...

September 3, 2019
News, Slider, , ,
Read more...

August 2019
30Aug

The Palgrave Handbook of Unconventional Risk Transfer

By Maurizio Pompella, Nicos A Scordis This handbook examines the latest techniques and strategies that are used to unlock the risk transfer capacity of global financial and capital markets. Taking the financial crisis and global recession into account, it frames and contextualises non-traditional risk transfer tools created over the last 20 years. Featuring contributions from distinguished academics and professionals from around the world, this book covers in detail issues in securitization, financial risk management and innovation, structured finance...

August 30, 2019
Books, Investing, System Sustainability, ,
Read more...
23Aug

Bridging Public Pension Funds and Infrastructure Investing

By Clive Lipshitz, Ingo Walter Underfunding of U.S. public pensions is a chronic policy issue that has become more severe over time. Public pension obligations were estimated at $5.96 trillion at the end of 2017 supported by assets of $4.33 trillion — a shortfall of $1.63 trillion and a ‘funded-ratio’ of 72.6%. We consider the sustainability of public pension systems in the face of changing demographics and frequently inadequate funding and investment returns, and make the connection to the...

August 23, 2019
Articles, Investing, , ,
Read more...

June 2019

25Jun

Retirement Funding in South Africa 2019

The South African retirement funding sector, with assets in excess of R4.26-trillion, has the fifth highest assets-to-gross domestic product ratio in the world. However, less than 10% of retirement fund members are able to maintain their standard of living when they stop working and 41% of economically active South Africans have not made any provision for their retirement. Total membership of retirement funds rose from 16.6 million to 16.9 million in 2017, while total retirement fund contributions increased by...

June 25, 2019
Books, Reports, System Sustainability, ,
Read more...
14Jun

The Future of Public Employee Retirement Systems (Pensions Research Council) (English Edition)

By Gary Anderson, Olivia S. Mitchell People covered by public pensions are often the subject of 'pension envy:' that is, their benefits might seem more generous and their contributions lower than those offered by the private sector. Yet this book points out that such judgments are often inaccurate, since civil servants hold jobs with few counterparts in private industry, such as firefighters, police, judges, and teachers. Often these are riskier, dirtier, and demand more loyalty and discretion than would...

June 14, 2019
Books, System Sustainability, , , ,
Read more...
14Jun

The Effects of Pension-Related Policies on Household Spending

By Susana Párraga Rodríguez This paper estimates the impact of pension-related policies on household spending. The identification strategy exploits the deviation in pensioner income and expenditure caused by the introduction of a new pension system during the 1980s and 1990s in Spain and constructs a new narrative series of legislated pension changes. I present a variety of estimates, some of them imply that increases in the average pension have a roughly one-for-one effect on pensioner spending. The strongest effects...

June 14, 2019
Articles, System Sustainability, , ,
Read more...
14Jun

The Great Pension Debate: Finding Common Ground

By Robert L Brown, Stephen Eadie In the never-ending debate about finding an optimal pension model, many proponents start the discussion at extreme ends of the pension model paradigm. At one extreme is a traditional, fully guaranteed defined-benefit (DB) pension plan. In this plan, all of the risks are born by the plan sponsor given that plans are fully funded. While such plans are growing rare today that is the starting point for many in this debate. At the...

June 14, 2019
Adequacy, Articles, Pension design, Slider-Left, , ,
Read more...