February 2026

Mission Driven Public Sector Pension Investment Board

By PSP Investments  Our mission inspires us. Together with our mandate. it shapes how we invest. We focus on the long term and seek to caretully consider sustainability-related risks and opportunities that may affect long-term value creation and the resilience of our portfolio. We are progressively embedding accountability for sustainability across the organization. As we proceed, we are learning and evolving our strategies with the aim of reaching better investment outcomes and improving our ability to deliver on our mandate. This report...

Sri Lanka ends parliamentary pensions to prune perks for politicians

Sri Lanka’s parliament abolished pensions for all legislators and their widows on Tuesday, in line with a government pledge to prune the perks of politicians. “When people see the quality of debate and what members say in this House, they don’t think MPs deserve a pension,” Justice Minister Harsana Nanayakkara told parliament as it voted to stop pensions with immediate effect. The leftist government of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake repealed the 49-year-old Parliamentary Pensions Act just months after withdrawing housing, vehicles and...

Public Pensions and the Strategic Timing of Formal Employment

  By Diego Vera Cossio, Mariano Bosch, Jonathan M. Leganza, Tatiana Mojica & María Laura Oliveri We study how public pensions impact lifecycle labor supply decisions. Our analysis centers on pension eligibility rules in Ecuador. We first use administrative data to document and unpack retirement spikes at eligibility ages. Next, we use survey data and regression discontinuity to investigate whether eligibility rules influence earlier-inlife decisions about when to work formally versus informally. We find discontinuous increases in transitions to formal employment...

January 2026

US. Congress Racing to Avoid Shutdown: What It Means for Retirement Plans

President Trump and Senate Democrats reportedly reached a funding agreement on Thursday night to avoid a partial government shutdown, but a lot of elements need to fall into place in a very short period to avoid a shutdown. According to Politico, Trump and the Democrats have agreed to separate out the Department of Homeland Security (which includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement) from the larger spending bill moving through Congress, and approve that bill, along with a short-term continuing resolution to...

Equable Institute Analysis: U.S. Public Pension Funds Close 2025 with Strong Returns

Equable Institute released a year-end update to its State of Pensions 2025 report. The analysis finds the aggregate funded ratio for U.S. state and local retirement systems are on track to improve from 78.0% in 2024 to 82.5% in 2025, based on data available through December 31st, 2025. Equable Institute estimates that unfunded liabilities will total $1.27 trillion for the 2025 fiscal year, compared to $1.54 trillion at the end of 2024. Strong market performance and record high contribution rates...

December 2025

Labor Supply and Savings Responses to Increasing the Pension Eligibility Age in South Korea

By Janghyeok An, Devon Gorry & Jonathan M. Leganza We study how South Koreans responded to an increase in the full pension eligibility age. Using a regression discontinuity design, we document the causal effects of the change on several potential margins of adjustment. We find clear evidence of delayed benefit claiming, consistent with studies in other settings. However, we find little to no statistical evidence of changes in labor supply, in contrast with previous literature. We also find no changes...

November 2025

South Africa. Military veterans pension “collapsing”

South Africa’s military veterans were promised dignity, stability, and financial relief through the Military Veterans Pension. Instead, thousands remain trapped in poverty and uncertainty as the Department of Military Veterans (DMV) and the Government Pensions Administration Agency (GPAA) preside over one of the most dysfunctional benefit rollouts in post-apartheid history, according to the Amalgamated Veterans of South Africa (AVSA). Ernest Lintnaar, CEO of AVSA, said what was meant to uplift veterans has become a crisis of unlawful deductions, lost files,...

Public Pensions and Private Savings

By Esteban García-Miralles & Jonathan M. Leganza How does the provision of public pension benefits impact private savings? We answer this question in the context of a Danish reform that increased social security eligibility ages. Using administrative data and a regression discontinuity design, we identify the causal effects of the policy on savings throughout the financial portfolio. We find increases in contributions to personal and employer-sponsored retirement accounts when delayed benefit eligibility induces extended employment. We argue that inertia—the continuation...

Trans troops sue United States Air Force over revoked pensions after 15–18 years of service

A group of trans veterans, lead by Master Sergeant Logan Ireland, 37, (pictured) is suing the United States Air Force after being stripped of retirement benefits they say were promised to them following years of honourable service. The lawsuit, filed on 10 November in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, involves 17 former Air Force and Space Force members who each served between 15 and 18 years. Under the Temporary Early Retirement Authority (TERA), they were initially granted early retirement in June, only for the Air Force to...

Thailand. Government revisits plan to raise civil service retirement age to 65

Thailand is revisiting the proposal to extend the civil service retirement age from 60 to 65, a reform aimed at addressing the ageing population and labour shortages. A report from the OCSC shows that, as of 2024, Thailand has 1.12 million government officials, including 414,088 civil servants, who are the main group under review for the proposed age extension. Other categories include 441,168 teachers, 268,063 local administrative officials, 213,086 police officers, 26,364 officials from independent constitutional agencies, 9,408 university civil servants,...