The issue of ageing and saving has two distinct facets. On the one hand, there is the individual issue. Each of us is getting older and wants to make sure that our savings plans are appropriate. I term this the ‘microeconomic’ aspect of saving and ageing. At the same time, OECD economies are...

Private pensions seem likely to provide the dominant source of income for the majority of retired workers in the future. New private pension instruments developed since 1986, notably personal pensions, have proved popular, but concern as to ‘overselling’ of personal pensions and as to the...

The worldwide stock market crashes of October 1987 were a cause of major public concern at the time, because of the natural fear that they would be followed by economic collapse, as was the case in 1929. The fact that this pattern shows no sign of being repeated is an enormous relief for all of...

At first sight, the technicalities of social securtiy benefit indexation are a somewhat abstruse topic, suitable only for the journals and handbooks of tax and finance practitioners. Yet the nature of benefit indexation systems has major implications both for trends in the living standards of...

This paper examines the asset positions of households at and around retirement in Britain using the Retirement Survey ‘waves’ of 1988-89 and 1994. The data provide the first panel evidence on retirement behaviour and asset evolution for a sample of older households in Britain. The analysis...

The Social Security Act 1986 allowed a wider range of pension schemes to contract out of the state earnings-related pension scheme (SERPS). Individuals now have a good idea of choice concerning their pension strategy, and an evaluation of this strategy involves some complex decision-making by...