Like Japan, the Netherlands has an aging population. As a consequence, the affordability of old-age pensions is under pressure. The labour market is also changing, with people more often changing jobs or choosing to become self-employed. Both trends raise the question of whether the pension system in its current form still meets the needs of working people today and in the future. The Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment asked the Netherlands Institute for Social Research scp to carry out a study of the support for solidarity in the Dutch supplementary pension system. Do working people still want to build up their pension in a collective system? What social trends are relevant here? Do employees prefer solidarity or choice? And to what extent do they express a preference for collective or individual pension schemes? This report answers these questions.

How different are fe/male life courses, and why? What is good, bad, or best for women under these or probable future circumstances? This ground-breaking book explores the difficulties women face in working life and retirement - and asks what can be done to achieve more gender equality and fairness for women and men alike. Leading pension experts from across Europe analyse the basic challenges through single and comparative country studies. The editors provide facts and figures on women's lives, work and pensions and draw theoretical lessons and practical policy conclusions from the studies and gendered statistical indicators.

In The Pension Fund Revolution, originally published nearly two decades ago under the title The Unseen Revolution, Drucker reports that institutional investors, especially pension funds, have become the controlling owners of America's large companies, the country's only capitalists. He maintains that the shift began in 1952 with the establishment of the first modern pension fund by General Motors. By 1960 it had become so obvious that a group of young men decided to found a stock-exchange firm catering exclusively to these new investors. Ten years later this firm (Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette) became the most successful, and one of the biggest, Wall Street firms.

Drucker's argument, that through pension funds ownership of the means of production had become socialized without becoming nationalized, was unacceptable to the conventional wisdom of the country in the 1970s. Even less acceptable was the second theme of the book: the aging of America. Among the predictions made by Drucker in The Pension Fund Revolution are: that a major health care issue would be longevity; that pensions and social security would be central to American economy and society; that the retirement age would have to be extended; and that altogether American politics would increasingly be dominated by middle-class issues and the values of elderly people.

While readers of the original edition found these conclusions hard to accept, Drucker's work has proven to be prescient. In the new epilogue, Drucker discusses how the increasing dominance of pension funds represents one of the most startling power shifts in economic history, and he examines their present-day Impact. The Pension Fund Revolution is now considered a classic text regarding the effects of pension fund ownership on the governance of the American corporation and on the structure of the American economy altogether. The reissuing of this book is more timely now than ever. It provides a wealth of information for sociologists, economists, and political theorists.

The NHS pension scheme is the largest in Europe. This guide explains how it works and how to maximize its benefits and avoid its pitfalls. The book covers: recent changes to the scheme including new provisions for early retirement; personal pensions, financial planning and investment options; advice on preparing for retirement and working after retirement; state benefits; and health and leisure in retirement. It is written for all NHS staff and should be of particular value to GPs and salaried doctors.

In the wake of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, lawmakers and regulators around the world have changed the playbook for how banks and other financial institutions must manage their risks and report their activities. The US Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and the European System of Financial Supervision (ESFS) is also crafting a framework to supervise regulated financial sector institutions including banks, insurers, pension funds, and asset managers. The implosion of the financial sector has also prompted calls for accounting changes from those seeking to better understand how assets and liabilities are reported. Initially banks were seen by many as the most important focus for regulatory reform, but other institutions are now attracting policymaker attention. There is logic to this in terms of managing systemic risk and ensuring a level playing field that avoids arbitrage between institutional structures. Yet the nature of pension and insurer liabilities is so different from that of bank liabilities that careful attention is needed in drafting appropriate rules. The new rules are having both direct and spill-over effects on retirement systems around the world. The first half of this volume undertakes an assessment of how global responses to the financial crisis are potentially altering how insurers, pension plan sponsors, and policymakers will manage risk in the decades to come. The second half evaluates developments in retirement saving and retirement products, to determine which and how these might help meet shortfalls in retirement provision.

A History of the German Public Pension System: Continuity amid Change provides the first comprehensive institutional history of the German public pension system from its origins in the late nineteenth century to the major reform period in the early twenty-first century. Relying on a wide range sources, including many used for the first time, this study provides a balanced account of how the pension system has coped with major challenges, such as Germany's defeat in two world wars, inflation, the Great Depression, the demographic transition, political risk, reunification, and changing gender roles. It shows that while the pension system has changed to meet all of these challenges, it has retained basic characteristics-particularly the tie between work, contributions, and benefits-that fundamentally define its character and have enabled it to survive economic and political turmoil for over a century. This book also demonstrates that the most serious challenge faced by the pension system has consistently been political intervention by leaders hoping to use it for purposes unrelated to its mission of providing the insured with secure and adequate retirement income.

Don’t spend your time worrying whether you can beat the markets: you don’t need to beat them to be a successful investor. By showing you how to build a simple and rational portfolio and tailor it to your specific needs, Investing Demystified will help you generate superior returns.

With his straightforward and jargon-free advice, Lars Kroijer simplies the often complex world of finance and tells you everything you need to know – and everything that you don’t need to worry about – in order to make the most from your investments.

In Investing Demystified you will:

• Discover the mix of stocks, bonds and cash needed for a top performing portfolio

• Learn why the most broadly diversified and simplest portfolio makes the most sense

• Understand the right level of risk for you and how this affects your investments

• Find out why a low cost approach will yield benefits whilst leaving you with a higher quality portfolio

• Understand the implications of tax and liquidity

Population ageing and slower economic growth have raised serious questions about the willingness and ability of governments to maintain current social policies. Within this new reality, discussions on the future of public pensions have been predominant in political debates across Europe. This book explains why certain countries have been able to radically transform their pension system while others have simply altered parameters. To answer this question an extensive comparative analysis, including more than 60 interviews, was conducted in Belgium, France, Sweden and the UK. This empirical data provides an interesting contrast between reforms. Parametric reforms have stemmed from the creation of pension administrations outside the traditional state apparatus in France and Belgium and the resulting inclusion of social partners; while the state administrations of Sweden and the UK where debates have been internalised have led to programmatic reforms. Two controversial findings of this book include an explanation for the lack of influence on the part of the labour movement in the 1994/98 Swedish reform and a rejection of arguments claiming that policy change will be minimal with coalition governments. Finally the conclusion seeks to extend the applicability of the model to other industrialized countries. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of public policy, specifically social policy, political economy, the welfare state and comparative politics.

How different are fe/male life courses, and why? What is good, bad, or best for women under these or probable future circumstances? This ground-breaking book explores the difficulties women face in working life and retirement - and asks what can be done to achieve more gender equality and fairness for women and men alike. Leading pension experts from across Europe analyse the basic challenges through single and comparative country studies. The editors provide facts and figures on women's lives, work and pensions and draw theoretical lessons and practical policy conclusions from the studies and gendered statistical indicators.

How to deliver adequate pension benefits at reasonable costs is a huge challenge confronting our ageing societies. This book delivers a comprehensive overview of the latest insights into pension finance, pension system design, pension governance and risk based supervision. It combines state-of-the-art analyses with innovative policy proposals to increase the efficiency and resilience of pension systems and to advance these systems' contribution to global financial stability. Renowned pension experts offer cutting-edge guidance for future decision making and the development of best practices. This exciting exploration of the frontiers in pension finance highlights key aspects of securing long term retirement provisions. Frontiers in Pension Finance will be of interest to a wide-ranging audience, especially academic researchers, pension practitioners, supervisors and public sector policymakers.

The sustainability of public pension systems has become an important aspect for governments and institutions worldwide. This book addresses the multiple elements that influence the sustainability of pension systems with a special focus on central and eastern European countries. Supported by the results of econometric empirical studies, the authors discuss and analyse areas like social economy versus capitalist economy, globalization versus glocalization, population aging versus birth and fertility, emigration versus immigration, early retirement versus prolongation versus professional activity, the sustainability of public pension systems versus the adequacy of benefits provided, public pension systems compared to private pension funds and taxation of salary incomes versus subsidization of state social insurance.

Intense media coverage of the public pension funding crisis continues to fuel heightened awareness in and debate over public pension benefits. With over $3 trillion in assets currently under management, the ramifications of poor oversight are severe. It is important that practitioners, researchers, and taxpayers be well-advised regarding any concerns, but until now traditional references have provided very little coverage.

State and Local Pension Fund Management provides a basic and systematic discussion of all the major issues facing those responsible for state and local public retirement programs. The author begins with a technical overview that examines the history of the public pension system. He then proceeds to examinations of pension benefit design, actuarial valuation and funding methods, financial reporting, and pension asset investment management.

These technical discussions prepare readers for the second component, which is a focus on policy. The book delves into issues such as managing public pension programs in the political context of public budgeting, pension benefit reforms, and the fairness and sustainability of pension benefits in the public sector. In addition, the author dedicates a chapter to a detailed discussion of other postemployment benefits (OPEBs) such as life, disability, and long-term care insurance, as well as healthcare subsidies. The book concludes by exploring the dilemma over how to ensure financial security for public employees in their retirement without putting additional pressure on state and local government finance.

By understanding the major issues involved in managing retirement benefit programs in the public sector, readers will gainthe knowledge needed to make informed decisions regarding specific fund management. They will also be better able to participate in the debate over the larger issues regarding pension fund policy and reform measures.

An updated edition of award-winning financial planner Jason Butler's effective guide to helping your wealth survive and thrive so that you achieve financial security and stability.

Population ageing and the resulting pressures on existing pension systems constitutes one of the most important challenges modern societies will have to face over the coming decades. Although governments have responded to such pressures by adopting a plethora of pension reforms, the adaptation process is far from over. This book comprehensively documents developments in pension policy in eleven advanced industrial countries in Western Europe, East Asia and North America. In order to explore what population ageing means for the sustainability of pension systems, the authors present a detailed review of pension policy making over the past two decades and provide up-to-date analysis of current pension legislation. They examine the factors that can facilitate or impede the adaptation of pension systems and the features that shape and determine reforms. They also highlight the fact that although the path of reform taken by each country is somewhat different, the processes at work are often very similar. Ageing populations throughout the world are extremely reluctant to see their pension systems dismantled and are therefore prepared to mobilise in their defence. This process of mobilisation interacts with demographic pressures and institutional constraints to help determine the future direction of pension policy. The breadth of geographic coverage provides an almost global picture of the impact of ageing on pension reform, at least in terms of high income countries. Academics and students with an interest in economics, social policy, sociology and political science will find this a worthwhile and rewarding volume. It will also be of value to policymakers interested in how the problem of unsustainable pension systems can be resolved.

America's elderly population is soaring, presenting numerous challenges for policymakers in the United States. Other developed nations with aging populations face similar problems. There will be fewer workers relative to retirees in coming decades and the elderly are also expected to live longer. The impact of these demographic changes in the United States is likely to be challenging, especially for America's system of social security. Solomon offers new perspectives on how to meet the future costs of social security without bankrupting the next generation or gravely damaging the U.S. economy. He also shows, more broadly, how to provide for the financial security of America's senior populations.

Over the past two decades, primary responsibility for providing a financially adequate retirement has shifted from the federal government and employers to individuals. For most Americans, social security alone will not provide enough income. Most companies have shed their pension plans for 401(k) plans, to which companies and employees contribute, and in which participants must make their own investment decisions. Consequently, achieving financial security in retirement has increasingly become one's personal responsibility.

Solomon deals extensively with the politics of social security, past and present. He examines the presidential leadership of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, both of whom revived the nation's spirit in times of crisis, both of whom introduced economic policies that remain controversial to the present day. He also considers in detail contemporary efforts to rethink social security, focusing on fundamental reform of the social security system and the expansion and simplification of employer-sponsored retirement plans and individual retirement arrangements.

Richly textured, informed, and informative, Financial Security and Personal Wealth encompasses history, demography, political economy, public finance, social policy. It will be of interest to policymakers, economists, and political scientists in the United States and elsewhere.

The Evolving Pension System examines the foundations and the future of the private pension system. It provides a broad overview of the underlying assumptions, characteristics, and effects of existing pension policy, as well as alternative views on how public policy toward pensions should evolve in the future. Contributors include Robert Clark (North Carolina State University), Eric Engen (Federal Reserve Board), William G. Gale (Brookings Institution), Theodore Groom (Groom Law Group, Chartered), Daniel Halperin (Harvard), Alicia Munnell (Boston College), Leslie Papke (Michigan State University), Joseph Quinn (Boston College), Sylvester Schieber (Watson Wyatt), John B. Shoven (Stanford), and Jack Vanderhei (Temple University and EBRI). William G. Gale is the Joseph A. Pechman Fellow in the Economic Studies program at the Brookings Institution. John B. Shoven is Charles R. Schwab Professor at Stanford University. Mark J. Warshawsky is director of research at the TIAA-CREF Institute.

Financial advisor and TV presenter Emmanuel Asuquo, is here to prove that learning about money does not have to be boring, especially as we battle through the current cost of living crisis. Get Your Money Right is a no-nonsense, no jargon guide to money, written by the TV financial expert Emmanuel Asuquo who grew up in Tower Hamlets, where nobody talked about money, looking at Canary Wharf, where he thought everybody talked about it all day. It is designed to take you from wherever you are financially to a place where you are in CONTROL of your money, so that you can earn more of it, build wealth and finally, pass it on to the next generation. Emmanuel takes complicated financial principles and break them down into practical, easy-to-understand concepts; he may be an Instagram superstar, but he is also a certified financial adviser as well. He explains the basics of finance and what you must look out for - whether it is getting a Money Mindset, Building Good Financial Habits, through to how to spend it on property, cars, pensions or savings. To make all of this more understandable, he shares stories of clients he has helped and the mess they were in before they met him, giving specific tips into how he helped them out of their situation. Get Your Money Right will allow you to understand: The UK Financial System, Financial Education in the UK, Money Mindset, Building Good Financial Habits, Working a Nine-to-Five, Running a Business/Setting up a Side Hustle, Budgeting, How to Spend Money, The UK Credit System, Borrowing, Saving, Pensions, Investing, Property, Protecting your assets, Generational Wealth, Philanthropy Usually, with money, you need to learn from your mistakes, but now you can just read this book and learn from other people's and the advice of a qualified financial adviser. We can confirm that this book is great investment - it is the first step to understanding your money and making it work for you. Time to take CONTROL.

Understanding the ways in which people save for their retirement is an urgent issue. So much has changed in the last 10 to 15 years, especially in the area of the provision of pensions and retirement income. Around the world, greater and greater responsibility is being allocated to individuals while governments discount their contributions to social security and employers retreat from the provision of supplementary retirement income.
This book explores the behavioral revolution and its implications for understanding financial decision-making and saving for the future. Recognizing the profound implications of this research program, it goes beyond issues of risk aversion, framing, and decision-making to consider how social identity and the resources due to people by virtue of their place in society figure in savings behavior. It gives considerable attention to the context of the environment in which people make financial decisions, arguing that this allows a better understanding of the coexistence of sophistication and naivety apparent in patterns of retirement saving.
Utilizing databases from the UK, the book provides an empirical foundation to its theoretical arguments, demonstrating how an integrated approach to individual financial decision-making is necessary if we are to address the apparent shortfall in many people's planning for the future. The book concludes by setting the agenda for the design, governance, and regulation of pension savings schemes consistent with delivering cost-effective solutions to pension adequacy. In these ways, it sets forth a strategy for rethinking individual behavior as well as the design of retirement income systems.

Perhaps the greatest long-term challenge facing modern economies is how to pay for the living expenses and care costs of the elderly. Following policy decisions made in Australia in the 1990s, a substantial part of the pension requirements of the next cohort of retirees will be met from savings accumulated during working years. The effective management of these savings is crucial. If they are invested wisely, the assets available to fund pensions and care will grow; if not, available funds may turn out to be insufficient. Unfortunately, there is considerable evidence worldwide that the management of funds attracts rent-seeking behaviour by the financial services industry which erodes much of the potential return. Australia introduced compulsory superannuation contributions for its working population in 1991, leading to a proliferation of funded schemes that are largely run by the private sector. Complexity, and many degrees of separation between fund members and those who manage their funds, have emerged as serious problems. Combined with weak competitive pressures and governance systems, and insufficient legal and regulatory constraints, the result is a system that does not serve its members well. This book provides a detailed evaluation of the Australian experience, highlights the extent to which the financial services industry has extracted rents from Australian pensioners, and how and why this occurred. Based on original empirical research, and examination of industry reviews and relevant literature, the book demonstrates the numerous principal-agent, conflict of interest and rent extraction problems that have emerged in Australia. The book makes suggestions for how these problems can be addressed in Australia, and also provides lessons for other countries wishing to enact pension reform.

Interest in longevity and longevity risk management is burgeoning, as government and regulatory agencies are increasingly conscious of the potential risks and benefits of longer lifespans. Commercial and industrial organizations, especially within the financial sector, are awakening to the opportunities presented by population aging, along with the new array of financial insurance instruments to manage longevity risk, which more sophisticated markets are making possible. This volume explores three main themes: the need for products to manage longevity risk; the structure and safety of financial products on the market that help manage longevity risk; and the role of policy in stimulating and strengthening longevity insurance products.
This edited volume brings together leading international experts to evaluate the challenge posed by trends in longevity risk and draws out the implications and constraints of this new reality for insurance companies and annuity providers. It discusses both emerging economies (India, Chile) and many of the older nations (Sweden, Canada, the US, Australia, Japan, the UK and Switzerland). It aims to instigate new thinking among retirement planners, plan sponsors, academics, and industry leaders seeking to manage retirement payouts and longevity risk.

As financial markets grow ever more complex and integrated, households must make increasingly sophisticated and all-too-often irreversible economic decisions. This is particularly evident in retirement decision-making. Traditional defined benefit pension schemes are being replaced with defined contribution pensions; employer and government judgment regarding how much to save and where to invest has been replaced by employees having to make these choices on their own (sometimes assisted by advisers); and retirees have become responsible for managing their own pension assets.
This volume explores how financial literacy can enhance peoples' ability to make informed economic choices. It proposes that financial literacy determines how well people make and execute saving, investing, borrowing, and planning decisions. It examines causality using controlled settings to disentangle whether financial literacy causes saving or vice versa, and demonstrates that financial education programs do indeed enhance financial decision-making and asset accumulation.

Existing literature has looked at many factors which have shaped Chinese pension reforms. As China's pension reform proceeds in an expanding and localising fashion, this book argues that there is a pressing need to examine it in the context of China's political institutions and economic transformations. The book takes a unique approach by looking at political institutions of the Chinese state and the changing conditions of the Chinese economy, which rarely receive proper treatment in the current analysis of China's pension reforms.

Occupational pensions are major participants in global financial markets with assets of well over $30 trillion, representing more than 40% of the assets of institutional investors. Some occupational pension funds control assets of over $400 billion, and the largest 300 occupational pension funds each have average assets of over $50 billion. The assets of UK pension funds are equivalent to UK GDP, and US pension fund assets are 83% of US GDP. These statistics highlight the importance of pension funds as major players in financial markets, and the need to understand the behaviour of these large institutional investors. Occupational pensions also play an important, but neglected, role in corporate finance. For example, US company pension schemes account for over 60% of company market value, and yet they are often ignored when analysing companies. This book is based on the substantial body of evidence available from around the world on a topic that has become increasingly important and controversial in recent years. Written for practitioners, students and academics, this book brings together and systematizes a very large international literature from financial economists, actuaries, practitioners, professional organizations, official documents and reports. The underlying focus is the application of the principles of financial economics to occupational pensions, including the work of Nobel laureates such as Merton, Markowitz, Modigliani, Miller and Sharpe, as well as Black. This book will give readers an up-to-date understanding of occupational pensions, the economic issues they face, and some suggestions of how these issues can be tackled. The first section explains the operation of defined benefit and defined contribution pensions, along with some descriptive statistics. The second section covers selected aspects of occupational pensions. The focus of these first two sections is on the economic and financial aspects of pensions, accompanied by some basic information on how they operate. This is followed by three further sections that analyse the investment of pension funds, the corporate finance implications of firms providing pensions for their employees, and annuities.

For many of us, Social Security doesn't seem to be the good deal our parents enjoyed. Pensions from previous generations have either disappeared or been completely reengineered and, to make matters worse, we have just gone through the worst decade for investing since the Depression. As the 'Baby Boomer' generation reaches the age of 65, Americans are faced with the confounding problem of how to pay for a growing retired population with increasingly limited financial resources.Yet the historical evolution of these current dilemmas has been full of signs indicating that we would arrive ultimately at where we are now. In Predictable Surprise, Sylvester J. Schieber explains how retirement systems work and the implications for various generations of continuing our current course. He lays the background for the establishment of retirement programs in the United States, focusing on the beginning of employer-sponsored pensions and on Social Security. The motivations for setting up these programs decades ago still persist, despite current developments. Schieber explains how the original architecture of Social Security has changed in ways that have led to current concerns about financing and equity of the program. In contrast, he shows how Social Security has at the same time defied change to accommodate to social and economic circumstances that have evolved since its 1935 inception. Schieber discusses benefits that Social Security has delivered over time, how the system is changing before our eyes, and the costs that it has exacted from various segments of our society. Employing clear and concise language, Schieber's Predictable Surprise describes the nuances of the political economics of retirement in an approachable and applicable manner-just when we need it the most.

The central research objective of the dissertation is to assess the suitability of Social Responsible Investments (SRIs) as well as alternative investments for the strategic asset allocation of German Pension Insurance Funds (Pensionskassen). Using a Vector Error Correction model, we estimate the data generating process of the underlying input variables. A bootstrap simulation allows generating future return paths of the underlying portfolios. These return distributions will subsequently be used as input for different asset allocation strategies.The empirical results of our research study offer valuable conclusions: (1) SRI-structured portfolios consistently perform better than conventional portfolios, (2) including alternative investments has a beneficial effect on the risk-return distribution and (3) derivative overlay structures mitigate downside risk exposure without impacting average fund performance. In terms of alternative allocation models, (1) high-equity portfolios lead to an increase in return volatility without sufficiently compensating investors with higher returns, (2) hedging against price increases by engineering a portfolio with inflation-suitable assets yields mixed results, (3) a portfolio composition that combines derivative overlay strategies for both equities and corporate bonds and uses SRI-screened assets as underlying generates the best results.