An attempt to unravel the complexities of pension policy in the UK, including financial, fiscal, labour-market and income-distribution analyses of the retirement-income system. This book, drawing on five years’ IFS research, was widely praised. A Financial Times editorial observed that ‘The...

Many of Asia‟s retirement-income systems are ill prepared for the rapid population ageing that will occur over the next two decades. The demographic transition – to fewer babies and longer lives – took a century in Europe and North America. In Asia, this transition will often occur in a...

The 1980s were a decade of tax reform across OECD countries. The changes had many common themes. Top rates of personal income tax and rates of corporate income tax fell, but revenues were maintained by broadening the bases of these taxes. Seven countries introduced a value-added tax. Many...

The object of this paper is to examine the impact of type of pension scheme on retirement behaviour. The well-documented decline in the labour-force participation of older women and older men (in particular) is common to most industrialised countries. The proportion of men aged 55 to 64 in...

While other regions — Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America in particular — have been active in pension reform, the Middle East and North Africa have lagged behind. In part this is because of the belief that favourable mean financial problems are still far in the future and pension...

A number of countries have introduced individual, privately managed defined-contribution accounts, where the value of the pension benefit will depend on accumulated contributions and investment returns. These schemes expose workers’ future pension benefits to a number of different risks. To...

While personal-pension mis-selling dominated the headlines, just as costly was the over-compensation offered to younger workers to contract out of the state scheme into personal pensions. The proposal for age-related rebates outlined in this book was later taken up by the government.

Pension fund charges reduce the rate of return on pension accounts in some countries by up to by two percentage points. Do charges of this scale undermine the case for funded pension provision? How can governments hold back costs and charges? This paper looks at evidence from thirteen countries,...

Reforming pensions is one of the biggest challenges of the century. All OECD countries have to adjust to the ageing of their populations and re-balance retirement income provision to keep it adequate and ensure that the retirement income system is financially sustainable. Demographers have been...

A critical question in the transition to a funded, private pension system is whether the new private element is presented as a mandate or choice to current and future workers. This paper sets out the spectrum of available options and looks at policy in 13 reforming countries. It concludes that...