Pension Strategies in Europe and the United States

Pension Strategies in Europe and the United States
Author: Robert Fenge
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2008
Genre: Pension trusts
ISBN: 0262062720

Demographic realities will soon force developed countries to find ways to pay for longer retirements for more people. In Pension Strategies in Europe and the United States, leading economists analyze topical issues in pension policy, with a focus on raising the retirement age, increasing retirement savings, and the political sustainability of reforms that will accomplish these goals. After a substantive and wide-ranging introduction by the editors that weaves together the demographic and economic strands of the story, the chapters present cutting-edge research, offering both theoretical and empirical analyses. Contributors examine such topics as the reform of key structural features of existing pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension systems, analyzing how benefits should vary with the age of retirement, labor supply elasticity after France's 1993 pension reform, and fiscal response to a demographic shock; the feasibility of PAYG reforms in the United States and the competition among state pension systems that results from labor mobility in Europe; and private, funded systems (increasingly perceived as necessary adjuncts to PAYG systems) in the UK, the US, and the Netherlands, and in terms of individual portfolio management. The editors conclude the volume with a study of recent German and UK reforms and their effects on personal savings.ContributorsTheodore C. Bergstrom, A. Lans Bovenberg, Antoine Bozio, Woojen Chung, Juan C. Conesa, Gabrielle Demange, Richard Disney, Carl Emmerson, Robert Fenge, Luisa Fuster, Carlos Garriga, Christian Gollier, John L. Hartman, Ayse Imrohoroglu, Selahattin Imrohoroglu, Thijs Knaap, Georges de Ménil, Pierre Pestieau, Eytan Sheshinski, Matthew WakefieldRobert Fenge is Senior Research Fellow at the Ifo Institute for Economic Research and Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Munich. Georges de Ménil is Professor of Economics at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris. Pierre Pestieau is Professor of Economics at the University of Liège. Fenge and Pestieau are coauthors of Social Security and Early Retirement (MIT Press, 2005).

Joint Report on Pensions

Joint Report on Pensions
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 96
Release: 2010
Genre: Old age pensions
ISBN:

Recoge: 1. An introduction to pensions reform- 2. A decade in pension reform in the EU - 3. The impact of the crisis - 4. Policy challenges over the long-term - 5. Policy implications.

Pension Reforms in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe

Pension Reforms in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe
Author: Igor Guardiancich
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2013
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0415688981

This book traces and analyzes the legislation and implementation of pension reforms in four Central, Eastern and Southeastern European countries: Croatia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. By comparing the political economy of their policymaking processes, it seeks to pinpoint regularities between institutional settings, actor constellations, decision-making strategies and reform. Guardiancich employs a historical institutionalist framework to analyze the policies, actors and institutions that characterized the period between the collapse of socialism and the global financial crisis of 2008-2011. He argues that viable pension reforms should not be seen simply as an event, but rather as a continuing process that must be fiscally, socially and politically sustainable. In particular, the primary goal of a pension scheme is to reduce poverty, provide adequate retirement income and insure against the risks of old age within given fiscal constraints, and this will happen only if the scheme enjoys continuing political support at all levels. To this end the author individuates those institutional characteristics of countries that increase the consistency of reforms and lower the likelihood of policy reversals in time. Pension Reforms in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe will be of interest to students and scholars of political science, political economy, social policy and economics.

Pension Reform in Europe

Pension Reform in Europe
Author: Robert Holzmann
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2003
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780821353585

The need for pension reform is an increasingly important issue on the economic reform agenda of most European countries, although there has been considerable variation in the approaches adopted. This publication contains a selection of papers from leading scholars and practitioners in the fields of economics and political science, which seek to provide an insight into the process and progress of European pension reform and to highlight areas for further research.

Evaluating the Financial Performance of Pension Funds

Evaluating the Financial Performance of Pension Funds
Author: Richard Hinz
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2010-01-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0821381601

Countries around the world are increasingly relying on individual pension savings accounts to provide income in old age for their citizens. Although these funds have now been in place for several decades, their performance is usually measured using methods that are not meaningful in relation to this long-term objective. The recent global financial crisis has highlighted the need to develop better performance evaluation methods that are consistent with the retirement income objective of pension funds. Compiling research derived from a partnership among the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and three private partners, 'Evaluating the Financial Performance of Pension Funds' discusses the theoretical basis and key implementation issues related to the design of performance benchmarks based on life-cycle savings and investment principles. The book begins with an evaluation of the financial performance of funded pension systems using the standard mean variance framework. It then provides a discussion of the limitations inherent to applying these methods to pension funds and outlines the many other issues that should be addressed in developing more useful and meaningful performance measures through the formulation of pension-specific benchmark portfolios. Practical implementation issues are addressed through empirical examples of how such benchmarks could be developed. The book concludes with commentary and observations from several noted pension experts about the need for a new approach to performance measurement and the impact of the recent global financial crisis on pension funds.

Pension Reform

Pension Reform
Author: Robert Holzmann
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 692
Release: 2006
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 082136166X

This book presents 25 state of the art papers on the conceptual foundations and issues surrounding Non-financial, or Notional, Defined Contribution (NDC), country implementation of NDC (Italy, Latvia, Poland, and Sweden) and case studies for countries where NDC is figured in the reform debate. This book is intended to be a handbook for academics and policy makers who want to become informed about what NDC is and to learn about the pros and cons of this attractive reform proposal.

Reforming Early Retirement in Europe, Japan and the USA

Reforming Early Retirement in Europe, Japan and the USA
Author: Bernhard Ebbinghaus
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2006-07-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780199286119

Examines the consequences of early retirement from the workforce in advanced industrialized economies for individual lives, labor markets, and welfare states, discusses the reasons why older working people withdraw from employment prior to statutory pension age, and discusses obstacles to reform efforts.

The Challenge of Public Pension Reform in Advanced and Emerging Economies

The Challenge of Public Pension Reform in Advanced and Emerging Economies
Author: Mr.Benedict J. Clements
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 86
Release: 2013-01-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 147556631X

Pension reform is high on the policy agenda of many advanced and emerging market economies. In advanced economies the challenge is generally to contain future increases in public pension spending as the population ages. In emerging market economies, the challenges are often different. Where pension coverage is extensive, the issues are similar to those in advanced economies. Where pension coverage is low, the key challenge will be to expand coverage in a fiscally sustainable manner. This volume examines the outlook for public pension spending over the coming decades and the options for reform in 52 advanced and emerging market economies.

Theory of Public Finance in a Federal State

Theory of Public Finance in a Federal State
Author: Dietmar Wellisch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2000-01-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1139431315

The central question of this book is whether the assignment of government functions to the individual jurisdictions in a federal state can ensure an optimal allocation of resources and a fair income distribution. The analysis thereby gives a new answer to the old question about the optimal degree of fiscal decentralization in a federal state. It shows that fiscal decentralization is a method to disclose the preferences of currently living and future generations for local public goods, to limit the size of the government, and to avoid excessive public debt finance. While the allocative branch of the government benefits from fiscal decentralization, it is difficult to obtain a distribution of incomes that differs from the outcome that the market brings along.

Old-age Income Support in the 21st Century

Old-age Income Support in the 21st Century
Author: Robert Holzmann
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2005-01-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 082136040X

The past decade has brought an increasing recognition to the importance of pension systems to the economic stability of nations and the security of their aging populations. This report attempts to explain current policy thinking and update the World Bank's perspective on pension reform. This book incorporates lessons learned from recent Bank experiences and research that have significantly increased knowledge and insight regarding how best to proceed in the future. The book has a comprehensive introduction and two main parts. Part I presents the conceptual underpinnings for the Bank's thinking on pension systems and reforms, including structure of Bank lending in this area. Part II highlights key design and implementation issues where it signals areas of confidence and areas for further research and experience, and includes a section on regional reform experiences, including Latin American and Europe and Central Asia.