The paper reviews evidence that suggests that, over the coming two decades, people are likely to stay in the work force at least five years longer, possibly by considerably more. The implications for policy are surprisingly large and surprisingly unrecognized. Recent trends, if extended into the...

This paper sheds light on the current state and the likely future development of Korea’s evolving pension system by analyzing it from a comparative perspective. It shows that, because of its many institutional layers, the Korean pension system could evolve into one of several different types...

This paper seeks to contribute to a forward-looking debate on possible reform options for the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and the Quebec Pension Plan (QPP). Even though it focuses on the CPP, most of its analysis applies to the QPP as well since the two programs are largely identical. This paper...

This article argues that welfare state restructuring, which is highly unpopular among voters, is politically feasible if government and opposition parties collude informally with each other. Contrary to key arguments made in the literature, restructuring does not require the formation of a...

Focusing on Canada, this paper explores the politics of social policy retrenchment and restructuring in two policy areas: old-age pensions, especially the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), and Employment Insurance (EI) [formerly Unemployment Insurance (UI)]. Drawing on historical institutionalism and...

This article argues that an increase of the retirement age from 65 years to 67 or higher, which is the most unpopular pension reform measure, is politically feasible if the major parties build either a formal or an informal grand coalition. It argues further that institutional rules and agreed...

Post-war policies and subsequent debates had two policy targets: reducing old-age poverty and enhancing income security for the “average worker” after retirement. While we know a lot about the first issue, the second has received less attention as a result of data limitations. We take...

By all measures the private pension system in Canada is in difficulty. One estimate suggests that at the end of 2005 there were significant funding shortfalls in about three quarters of the traditional defined benefit pension plans that fall under federal jurisdiction in Canada. In order to...

Job losers exhibit significant heterogeneity in wealth holdings and in the marginal propensity to consume transitory income. We consider potential sources of this heterogeneity, whether (some of) the unemployed face borrowing constraints, and the implications of this heterogeneity for...

Unemployment insurance is more valuable when self-insurance is more diffcult. Self-insurance is more viable when the cost of borrowing and the cost of saving are low. The cost of savings depends on the timing of income and the timing of needs, as well as private and market discount rates....