In most countries, retirement benefits from pension saving must be taken as an annuity. By contrast, Australia allows benefits to be taken as a lump sum and instead has recently introduced various tax incentives to encourage annuity purchase. This paper investigates the effectiveness of these...

The past few decades have witnessed a global move towards private provision for retirement through individual defined contribution pensions at the expense of publicly provided and employer-sponsored defined benefit pensions. As a consequence, workers and retirees are becoming increasingly...

Straightforward geometry can be used to explain the role for life annuities in smoothing individual consumption during retirement. In the aggregate, there is a surprising analogy with a standard diagram from trade theory. That diagram takes careful account of the government revenues foregone...

This paper documents developments in public sector pensions in Australia, and reports estimated unfunded liabilities associated with benefits promised to public sector employees. Australia's experience with public sector pensions is unusual - currently, the defence forces and the judiciary...

As most other OECD Member countries had already done, Australia has, since 1991, supplemented an existing flat-rate universal (but means-tested) residence-based old-age pension by a compulsory earnings related second tier for employees known as the “Superannuation Guarantee”. However, it was...