"The author studies annuity rates in Chile and relates them with industry competition. He finds (1) that annuity insurance companies paying higher broker commissions paid lower annuity rates; and (2) a structural break of the long-run elasticity of annuity rates to the risk-free rate in 2001....

"Empirical analyses of annuities markets have been limited to a few industrial countries and restricted by data limitations. Chile provides excellent conditions for research on annuities because of the depth of its market and the availability of data. The authors use a panel of life insurance...

This review of consumer protection and financial literacy (CPFL) in the private pensions and securities sectors in Rwanda complements the 2013 review of Rwanda's banking, microfinance, and insurance sectors. As noted previously, the institutional elements of the formal financial sector in Rwanda...

Pension, to most people, implies a regular payment from a specific age-such as retirement-until death. Individual retirement accounts are a vehicle for retirement savings but they do not become a pension in the conventional sense of the word until they are converted to an 'annuity'. How much and...

Notional accounts are designed to mimic a defined contribution plan, where the pension depends on contributions and investment returns. (For this reason, they are sometimes called notional, defined-contribution schemes). Pension contributions are tracked in accounts which earn a rate of return....

The value of funded pensions can depend critically on the funds' investment performance. To try and protect people's savings, governments often regulate pension funds strictly, particularly when contributions are mandatory. For example, the new funded pension systems in Latin America and Eastern...

"In this paper the authors reconsider the idea of an earnings-related pension system with reserves invested in indexed government bonds as a mechanism to both ensure financial sustainability and improve security. They start by reviewing the characterization of the sustainable rate of return of...