June 2019

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...

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...

May 2019

Pension Scheme Designs: Can It Influence Timing of Retirement? The Case of the Public Service Pension Scheme in Uganda

By Kibs Boaz Muhanguzi Ambiguity in literature about how pensions influence retirement decision can be a challenge to policy formulation unless further inquiry is done. This ambiguity could be attributed to a number of factors including the study scope, different pension designs and differing study methodologies. Using Uganda’s public service pension scheme, this study delves into exploring whether the scheme’s design influences timing of retirement. Using a probit model, analysis of the effect of pension o timing of retirement...

Retirement Choices by State and Local Public Sector Employees: The Role of Eligibility and Financial Incentives

Por Leslie E. Papke I analyze the effects of state public pension parameters on the retirement of public employees. Using a panel data set of public sector workers from 12 waves of the Health and Retirement Study, I model the probability of retirement as a function of pension wealth at early and normal retirement eligibility and Social Security coverage in the public sector job. I find that becoming eligible for early retirement, or receiving an early-out offer, significantly increases the...

A Lifetime of Changes: State Pensions and Work Incentives at Older Ages in the UK, 1948-2018

By James Banks, Carl Emmerson We describe the history of state pension policy in the UK since 1948 and calculate summary measures of the generosity of the system over time and the degree to which the it created implicit taxes on, or subsidies to, work at older ages. The time series of these measures, calculated separately for ’example-type’ individuals of different birth cohorts, education and sexes, are then related to the time-series of employment rates at older ages for the equivalent...

March 2019

Global Pension Crisis: Unfunded Liabilities and How We Can Fill the Gap

By Richard A. Marin, Robert H. Frank A comprehensive look at the crisis of unfunded pension liabilities and what must be done to avoid the same problem in the future As the generational bubble of the Baby Boomers begins to retire, it is increasingly evident that governments, corporations, and individuals have failed to adequately prepare for the obligations and needs of this giant cohort. Retirees are outliving actuarial life expectancies, pension liabilities are skyrocketing, pension plans are underfunded, and medical costs...

The phony retirement crisis

By Andrew Biggs Contrary to the alarms, household savings are growing. But government plans are underfunded. Lawmakers are taking action to deal with the “retirement crisis.” More than 200 House Democrats are sponsoring a bill to expand Social Security benefits, funded by a dramatic increase in taxes. California, Connecticut, Illinois and Oregon have established state-run retirement plans for private sector-workers, which many progressives hope will supplant 401(k)s. But there is no retirement crisis among either today’s retirees or tomorrow’s. Eight in 10...

Retirement Challenge – A Perspective for Emerging Markets

By Nadeem Jeddy (Independent) The West offers valuable lessons in managing retirement challenge but their experience needs to be contextualized for a vastly different sociopolitical environment of the emerging markets. This has important implications for aggregating retirement pools to build scale, investment model of firms, boundary for public sector role and solutions for income security. The article describes the differences in sociopolitical context, reviews some important Western lessons and then proceeds to outline the key features of a sustainable retirement...

July 2018

The Extent and Nature of State and Local Government Pension Problems and a Solution

By Ross Marchand (Taxpayers Protection Alliance) & Mark Warshawsky (Government of the United States of America - Social Security Administration) Some states and municipalities are in difficult financial straits. Many more have severely underfunded defined benefit pension plans for their past and current employees. At the intersection of these two sets, it is likely that the pension plans are not sustainable and cuts are inevitable, including to the benefits of current retirees. But in many of these states and municipalities,...

Pension Plans in Germany: Market Sales in Germany

From Editorial DataGroup Europe The Pension Plans Germany eBook provides 14 years Historic and Forecast data on the market for each of the 5 Products and Markets covered. The Products and Markets covered (Pension Plans) are classified by the Major Products and then further defined and analysed by each subsidiary Product or Market Sector. In addition full Financial Data (188 items: Historic and Forecast Balance Sheet, Financial Margins and Ratios) Data is provided, as well as Industry Data (59 items)...