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Books > Money & Finance > Pensions
This first major book on Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in Nigeria explores the legal, policy and strategic issues involved in the structuring and execution of PPP projects in Nigeria. The book goes beyond the toolkit approach of other available resources to blend the theoretical analysis of concepts with practical step-by-step guides for consummating projects. The book adopts a multidisciplinary approach by integrating law, economics, finance and project management literature, relying on the author's extensive experience in the field to give clear insights on the PPP concept. The case study methodology employed in the book produces rich and compelling empirical results. This book is suitable for beginners wishing to develop an understanding of the concept, as well as practitioners advising on PPPs. Students and academics wishing to carry out further research on PPPs will also benefit from the book.
This book provides a secure grounding in the theory and practice of
finance insofar as it deals with pension matters. By using it, the
reader will understand the various types of investment assets;
This book focuses on relatively unexplored areas in pension and health care arrangements, including financing, in East Asia. The book aims to fill the literature gap on social protection in East Asia by covering issues such as pension and health care arrangements in the depopulating high income countries of Japan and Korea; the challenges of the pay-out phase in Defined Contribution (DC) arrangements in Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore; and the extension of coverage of social protection schemes in China, India, and Indonesia. It also reviews social protection from a much wider perspective and extends coverage of social protection in terms of both the proportion of the population with access to the social protection scheme and the types of risks faced by the households and by society as a whole. The book also gives attention to reforms of civil service pensions.
This book argues that the implementation of compulsory, highly regulated, privately administered, defined contribution pensions facilitates rent-seeking behaviour on the part of the pension fund administrators and undermines the retirees' income and well-being. While the book focuses primarily on Chile, its analysis and conclusions are applicable to several Latin American and Eastern European countries where privately administered pension systems have been implemented. Chapters evaluate the scholarly literature and empirical evidence around three aspects of the pension fund industry: structure, pricing and performance. The authors conclude that state regulation has facilitated the accumulation of capital in the hands of the pension fund administrators. They also demonstrate that these systems owe more to the values and principles of conservative philosophy than to neoliberalism in providing alternative solutions to the rent-seeking approach to retirement.
Economic Restructuring and Social Exclusion provides a timely reminder of persisting inequalities of class, race and gender as a consequence of the changes which have engulfed Europe in less than a decade. The contributors consider key debates including democracy, social justice and citizenship. The book also examines evidence that social and economic polarization is increasing, and the prospect of a conspicuous and growing "underclass" in Europe's urban centres is fast becoming a reality. This volume will be particularly valuable for undergraduate and postgraduate students in sociology.
There is increasing pressure for all of us to take responsibility for our own financial security and wellbeing, but we often overlook how the benefits that come with a job can help us do that. Essential Personal Finance: A Practical Guide for Employees focuses on these valuable work benefits and shows how you can build on this important foundation to achieve financial security and your life goals. This unique book explores how making effective and practical use of these work benefits (such as pension scheme, life cover, sick pay, cheap loans, savings schemes and even financial coaching), means facing up to the behavioural biases we are all plagued with. Given that these can get in the way of even the best intentions, Essential Personal Finance tackles these biases head-on with practical ideas and tips for overcoming or harnessing them for good, and will help you to develop a positive and fruitful relationship with your money. With financial stress being a major cause of absenteeism and sick leave, low morale and lost productivity, the advice in this book also offers employers enormous benefits. By empowering employees through financial education and financial awareness, progressive employers will help them feel more in control of their lives, and experience less stress, resulting in higher morale and productivity. Offering a distinctive approach which combines academic insight with practical financial wisdom and tools, this is a must-have book for all employees. It will help you make the most of everything your job has to offer so you can worry less about money and live life to the full.
There is increasing pressure for all of us to take responsibility for our own financial security and wellbeing, but we often overlook how the benefits that come with a job can help us do that. Essential Personal Finance: A Practical Guide for Employees focuses on these valuable work benefits and shows how you can build on this important foundation to achieve financial security and your life goals. This unique book explores how making effective and practical use of these work benefits (such as pension scheme, life cover, sick pay, cheap loans, savings schemes and even financial coaching), means facing up to the behavioural biases we are all plagued with. Given that these can get in the way of even the best intentions, Essential Personal Finance tackles these biases head-on with practical ideas and tips for overcoming or harnessing them for good, and will help you to develop a positive and fruitful relationship with your money. With financial stress being a major cause of absenteeism and sick leave, low morale and lost productivity, the advice in this book also offers employers enormous benefits. By empowering employees through financial education and financial awareness, progressive employers will help them feel more in control of their lives, and experience less stress, resulting in higher morale and productivity. Offering a distinctive approach which combines academic insight with practical financial wisdom and tools, this is a must-have book for all employees. It will help you make the most of everything your job has to offer so you can worry less about money and live life to the full.
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.
The ultimate guidebook for navigating the new world of pensions and retirement plans In the wake of the explosive growth of defined contribution (DC) plans invested with target date strategies, and the understanding of how important these strategies can be in effectively meeting retirement income goals, plan sponsors are seeking more optimal target date approaches. This timely book provides you with in-depth answers from the nation's most qualified and experienced experts to pressing questions about DC plan design.Presents the views of individuals from all across the marketIncludes a broad range of plan sponsors both in the corporate world and in the public/government sectorsOffers views from consultants and advisors from the most respected firms, academics who teach at leading universities, and other innovative leaders With a broad range of knowledge and insight, "Designing Successful Target Date Strategies in Defined Contribution Plans" helps you understand the evolution of DC plans, pulls together all angles of what it takes to develop custom target date strategies, and provides you with a look ahead to the future.
As pension fund systems decrease and dependency ratios increase, risk management is becoming more complex in public and private pension plans. Pension Fund Risk Management: Financial and Actuarial Modeling sheds new light on the current state of pension fund risk management and provides new technical tools for addressing pension risk from an integrated point of view. Divided into four parts, the book first presents the correct measurement of risk in pension funds, fund dynamics under a performance-oriented arrangement, an attribution model for monitoring the performance and risk of a defined benefit (DB) pension fund, and an optimal investment problem of a defined contribution (DC) pension fund under inflationary risk. It also describes a pension plan from a dynamic optimization viewpoint, the optimal asset allocation of U.S. pension funds, the identification of stakeholders risks, value-at-risk (VaR) methodology, and various effects on the asset allocation of DB pension schemes. The second section focuses on the effects of uncertainty on employer-provided DB private pension plan liabilities; wage-based lump sum payments by death, retirement, or dismissal by the employer; fundamental retirement changes; occupational pension insurance in Germany; and longevity risk securitization in pension schemes. In the third part, the book examines employers risks, accountability rules and regulations, useful actuarial analysis instruments, risk-based solvency regime in the Netherlands, and the impact of the 2008 global financial crisis on pension participants. The final part covers DB pension freezes and terminations of plans, the two-pillar social security system of Italy, the Greek social security system, the effect of a company s unfunded pension liabilities on its stock market valuation, and the returns of Spanish balanced pension plans and portfolio performance. With contributions from well-known, international academics and professionals, this book will assist pension fund executives, risk managers, consultants, and academic researchers in attaining a clear picture of the integration of risks in the pension world. It offers a comprehensive, contemporary account of how to handle the risks involved with pension funds.
Pension fund benefits are crucial for pensioners' welfare and pension fund savings have accumulated to huge amounts, covering a major part of world-wide institutional investments. However, the literature on pension fund economics and finance is rather limited, caused, in part, to limited data availability. This book contributes to this literature and focuses on three important areas. The first is pension fund (in)efficiency, which has a huge impact on final benefits, particularly when annual spoilage accumulates over a lifetime. Scale economies, pension plans complexity and alternative pension saving plans are important issues. The second area is investment behavior and risk-taking. A key question refers to the allocation of investments over high risk/high return and relatively safe assets. Bikker investigates whether pension funds follow the life-cycle hypothesis: more risk and return for pension funds with young participants. Many pension funds are rather limited in size, which may raise the question how financially sophisticated the pension fund decision makers are: rather professionals or closer to unskilled private persons? The third field concerns two regulation issues. How do pension fund respond to shocks such as unexpected investment returns or changes in life expectancy? What are the welfare implications to the beneficiary for different methods of securing pension funding: solvency requirements, a pension guarantee fund, or sponsor support? This groundbreaking book will challenge the way pension fund economics is thought about and practiced.
This volume develops an original critique of the belief that the present era of finance, where finance markets dominate contemporary capitalist economies, represents the best possible way of organising economic affairs. In fact, it is argued, the ensuing economic instability and inefficiency create the preconditions for the end of the dominance of finance. The End of Finance develops a theory of capital market inflation rooted in the work of Veblen, Kalecki, Keynes and Minsky, demonstrating how it disinclines productive activity on the part of firms, provides only short-term conditions that are propitious for privatisation and distorts monetary policy in the long-term. The author examines the role of pension fund schemes and financial derivatives in transmitting capital market inflation and provides a nuanced analysis of the contradictory role they play in the financial system. Capital market inflation is also examined in its historical context and compared with past inflations, in particular the South Sea and Mississippi Bubbles, which spawned the first financial derivatives, and the first privatisations. This broad historical vision allows us to see these forms of inflation as temporary and provisional in character.
This book focuses on relatively unexplored areas in pension and health care arrangements, including financing, in East Asia. The book aims to fill the literature gap on social protection in East Asia by covering issues such as pension and health care arrangements in the depopulating high income countries of Japan and Korea; the challenges of the pay-out phase in Defined Contribution (DC) arrangements in Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore; and the extension of coverage of social protection schemes in China, India, and Indonesia. It also reviews social protection from a much wider perspective and extends coverage of social protection in terms of both the proportion of the population with access to the social protection scheme and the types of risks faced by the households and by society as a whole. The book also gives attention to reforms of civil service pensions.
First published in 1992, this book explains how pension funds work in order to highlight their impact on the economy as a whole. David Blake explores the different systems in operation at the time of writing, both state run and private sector, and describes policy initiatives such as personal pension schemes. Longer life-expectancy, overseas investment, equal opportunities and short-termism in capital markets are among the issues discussed as David Blake assesses how pension funds typically behave. This is a title of continued relevance, which addresses the questions repeatedly raised within government and wider society.
First published in 1992, this title conducts an in-depth examination of the investment behaviour of pension funds, presenting the first econometric model in this area. Using the well-established framework of modern portfolio theory, David Blake derives a model of optimal portfolio behaviour that explains pension fund asset holdings in terms of the most important macroeconomic and cyclical indicators. He shows how factors such as industry profitability, the balance of payments and the monetary and fiscal policies of the government influence pension fund investments. Broad in scope, this reissue will be of particular value to students and academics with an interest in econometrics, investment analysis and the pension fund industry.
"Global Portfolio Diversification" synthesizes principal debates between analysts and academics. Covering subjects such as risk management, diversification and hedging strategies, deviations from market efficiency, and exchange rates, the book includes case studies, research, and commentary by the editors. Essayists include two past presidents of the American Finance Association and the current editors of the Journal of Finance and Economic Inquiry, as well as senior market regulators, financial managers, and representatives of international securities exchanges. It includes features that: deal with increased interest in the globalization of financial markets; cover managing and hedging risks; analyze microstructures and analyses; and show how to implement portfolio diversification. It is prepared by an international team of leading financial academics and portfolio managers.
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.
First published in 1992, this title conducts an in-depth examination of the investment behaviour of pension funds, presenting the first econometric model in this area. Using the well-established framework of modern portfolio theory, David Blake derives a model of optimal portfolio behaviour that explains pension fund asset holdings in terms of the most important macroeconomic and cyclical indicators. He shows how factors such as industry profitability, the balance of payments and the monetary and fiscal policies of the government influence pension fund investments. Broad in scope, this reissue will be of particular value to students and academics with an interest in econometrics, investment analysis and the pension fund industry.
First published in 1992, this book explains how pension funds work in order to highlight their impact on the economy as a whole. David Blake explores the different systems in operation at the time of writing, both state run and private sector, and describes policy initiatives such as personal pension schemes. Longer life-expectancy, overseas investment, equal opportunities and short-termism in capital markets are among the issues discussed as David Blake assesses how pension funds typically behave. This is a title of continued relevance, which addresses the questions repeatedly raised within government and wider society.
The author presents a new approach to the study of private pensions in the united States and Canada. Whereas traditional approaches focus on the firm as the key to analyzing pension obligations and the impact of pensions on economic processes, Sahin takes the individual worker as the unit of analysis. The evolution of costs and benefits are then determined over the work life, which may include several jobs and membership in different pension plans. "The Worklife Report" Sahin presents a new approach to the study of private pensions in the United States and Canada. While traditional approaches focus on the firm as the key to analyzing pension obligations and the impact of pensions on economic processes, Sahin takes the individual worker as the unit of analysis. The evolution of costs and benefits are then determined over the work life, which may include several jobs and membership in different pension plans. Because the conventional approaches generally assume no job mobility and a single employer, Sahin demonstrates, they fail to adequately reflect the actual status of individual pension benefits, the effects of job mobility, and the unequal distribution of pension benefits to individuals with comparable working lives and wage profiles. To gain a clear view of private pensions and their impact on workers, employers, and public policy, Sahin shows that an analytical model that takes into account the interaction of job mobility, inflation, vesting rules, pension coverage, and portability must be employed. By taking the worker as the unit of analysis and emphasizing the dynamics of pension accumulation, Sahin is able to properly assess pension benefits from the perspective of the individual worker who needs to make rational job decisions, from the point of view of the employer concerned with the efficient and economical use of human resources, and from the public policy standpoint where the issue is the overall effectiveness of the private pension system. A pioneering contribution to the study of pension benefits, this volume will be of significant value to employee benefit specialists, policymakers, actuaries, and financial advisors.
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.
The rapid aging of the world's populations has triggered an anxious response in many governments that stresses the need to set up or radically overhaul their mandatory pension policies. This wideranging analysis compares and contrasts the policies and schemes of these countries, using many tables, graphs and charts to summarize important findings.
Dr. Nektarios examines the principles and criteria under lying public pension programs and assesses the effect of these programs on general economic growth. He begins by discussing the economic rationale of public pensions, then analyzes the influence of economic and demographic variables on the cost of a pension program and the effects of public pension systems on aggregate levels of income and capital stock. Suggesting that Feldstein's social security wealth(SSW) variable overestimates the amount of wealth generated by public pensions, Dr. Nektarios constructs a new SSW variable and uses it to estimate the impact of the u.s. Old Age and Survivors Insurance(OASI) program on capital formation and economic growth in the U.S. economy. The results of his econometric analysis suggest that operation of the OASI program has reduced capital formation by 10to 14 percent.
*A new edition of the international bestseller (a #1 bestseller in Japan), featuring a new preface* Does the thought of working for 60 or 70 years fill you with dread? Or can you see the potential for a more stimulating future as a result of having so much extra time? Many of us have been raised on the traditional notion of a three-stage approach to our working lives: education, followed by work and then retirement. But this well-established pathway is already beginning to collapse - life expectancy is rising, final-salary pensions are vanishing, and increasing numbers of people are juggling multiple careers. Whether you are 18, 45 or 60, you will need to do things very differently from previous generations and learn to structure your life in completely new ways. The 100-Year Life is here to help. Drawing on the unique pairing of their experience in psychology and economics, Lynda Gratton and Andrew J. Scott offer a broad-ranging analysis as well as a raft of solutions, showing how to rethink your finances, your education, your career and your relationships and create a fulfilling 100-year life. · How can you fashion a career and life path that defines you and your values and creates a shifting balance between work and leisure? · What are the most effective ways of boosting your physical and mental health over a longer and more dynamic lifespan? · How can you make the most of your intangible assets - such as family and friends - as you build a productive, longer life? · In a multiple-stage life how can you learn to make the transitions that will be so crucial and experiment with new ways of living, working and learning? Shortlisted for the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award and featuring a new preface, The 100-Year Life is a wake-up call that describes what to expect and considers the choices and options that you will face. It is also fundamentally a call to action for individuals, politicians, firms and governments and offers the clearest demonstration that a 100-year life can be a wonderful and inspiring one. |
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