March 2022

The Impacts of Matching Contributions on Retirement Savings: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment in Turkey
03Mar

The Impacts of Matching Contributions on Retirement Savings: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment in Turkey

By Sadettin Haluk Çitçi & Halit Yanikkaya Using a dataset containing information for more than 39 million contracts and a quasi-experimental design provided by national matching contribution policy reform in Turkey, we study the effects of matching contributions on saving outcomes and determine heterogeneities in responses to matching contribution. Differences-in-differences estimations show that the program leads to a substantial rise in contributions paid. The matching contribution policy raises contributions paid by 18 percent. Moreover, after 30 percent sharp rise in...

March 3, 2022
Articles, Savings, ,
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February 2022
01Feb

Turkey’s retirees suffer inflation pain despite pension hike

With soaring inflation in Turkey that has hit all walks of life, the pain of high cost of living is probably felt most by the country's old-age pensioners, despite the promises by the government under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan not to "crush the people under exorbitant prices." "I buy fruits and vegetables at closure time in the neighborhood market because of the cheaper price as sellers want to clear their shelves at the end of the day," Faruk Ekmen, a...

February 1, 2022
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August 2021
17Aug

Turkey: New Regulation On Activities To Be Evaluated Within The Scope Of Insurance Services And On Distance Insurance Contracts Has Been Published

The new regulation details the rules on the insurances that can be provided linked to goods and services offered by businesses whose primary business activity is not insurance brokerage which is becoming to stand out in practice. As per the new regulation, business processes carried out under the abolished regulation will be required to be compliant with the new Regulation by 1 September 2021. Accordingly, with the new regulation, insurance intermediaries, banks and institutions incorporated under special laws and authorized to...

August 17, 2021
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May 2021
13May

Turkey: The Regulation On The Private Pension System Has Been Amended

Amendments regarding the Regulation on the Private Pension System ("Regulation") were published in the Official Gazette No. 31476 dated 6 May 2021. With the changes introduced by the Insurance and Private Pension Regulation and Supervision Agency ("Agency"), new regulations have been created regarding the use of electronic means of communication, the maximum number of changes allowed in a fund distribution and the purchase and sale of pension investment funds via a central electronic platform. You can read the amendments...

May 13, 2021
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February 2019

23Feb

Pension Funds with Automatic Enrollment Schemes: Lessons for Emerging Economies

By Heinz P. Rudolph (The World Bank) Since the introduction of the KiwiSaver scheme in New Zealand in 2006, several countries have implemented, or are in the process of implementing, voluntary funded pension systems with automatic enrollment features. Since most of the literature has focused on countries with the common law tradition, including the United Kingdom and the United States, this note analyzes cases of countries with the civil code tradition, including Turkey, Poland, the Russian Federation, Chile, Brazil, and...

February 23, 2019
Articles, Pension design, System Sustainability, , , , , , , , ,
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September 2018

28Sep

Diversification Power of Real Estate Market Securities: The Role of Financial Crisis and Dividend Policy

By Metin Ilbasmis (University of Aberdeen) Marc Gronwald (University of Aberdeen; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)) Zhao Yuan Jun (Donghua University) This paper investigates dynamic conditional correlations between stock and REIT markets in both Turkey and the U.S. We use an Asymmetric DCC - GJR - GARCH model to estimate the dynamic conditional correlation at daily, weekly, and monthly frequencies. Our contribution is threefold. First, we find a that downward trend in the daily conditional correlation in...

September 28, 2018
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06Sep

What are the retirement ages around the world?

Retirement ages, or the age when some sort of government pension can be received, varies around the world. The OECD average for a normal pension age is currently 64.3 years for men and 63.7 years for women. While life expectancy has risen in many countries and governments grapple with ageing populations, any attempts to make people wait longer to collect benefits are usually met with fierce opposition, as Russia and Australia found out recently. Read more sbs

September 6, 2018
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January 2018

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
Articles, Slider-Left, System Sustainability, , , ,
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November 2017

16Nov

There’s A Big Shake Up Coming to Turkey’s Pension Industry

A looming shake up of Turkey’s pension savings industry that the government says is aimed at increasing competition and improving returns has some money managers fretting the steps will backfire as reduced fees erode service levels. Starting Jan. 1, Turkey’s 50 asset managers, which are permitted to oversee 100 percent of any pension fund company’s portfolio, will see that proportion slashed to 40 percent. Allianz AG and Aviva Plc are among 18 private pension companies who as of Nov. 3...

November 16, 2017
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June 2017

14Jun

Turkey. Automatic enrolment in private pension plans system

Introduction A long-awaited legal arrangement on employees' automatic enrollment in private pension plans by their employers was introduced into Turkish law by way of an amendment law published on August 25 2016. The amendment law adds new provisions to the Private Pension Savings and Investment System Act 2001. Accordingly, employees (including public officials) under the age of 45 will be enrolled in a private pension plan with a pension agreement between the employer and a pension company, which is executed under...

June 14, 2017
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