Introduced 20 years ago as a part of the 2001 pension reform, the Riester pension is meant to function as an essential component of the German pension system with the aim of compensating for decreasing public pensions. However, data collected by the SOEP show that this objective has not yet been...

Research on wealth inequality usually focuses on real and financial assets, while pension wealth – the present value of future pension entitlements from public and company pension schemes – receives little attention. This is astonishing, given that pension plans play an important role for...

We provide levels of, compositions of, and inequalities in household augmented wealth - defined as the sum of net worth and pension wealth - for two countries: the United States and Germany. Pension wealth makes up a considerable portion of household wealth: about 48% in the United States and...

We empirically investigate the distributional consequences of the Riester scheme, the main private pension subsidization program in Germany. We find that 38% of the aggregate subsidy accrues to the top two deciles of the population, but only 7.3% to the bottom two. Nonetheless the Riester scheme...

The stock market collapse led to political tensions between generations due to the fuzzy definition of the property rights over the pension funds’ wealth. The problem is best resolved by the introduction of generational accounts. Modern consumption and portfolio theory shows that the younger...

Pension systems combine government and privately-sponsored support to finance a suitable standard of living during retirement. Pension systems can be financed through pay-as-you-go (PAYG) or through pre-funding. PAYG pension schemes finance old- age retirement benefits in one particular period...

This paper reviews and makes comparative assessment of models of pensions systems. Pension plans and systems, and the contemporary trends in their development are briefly introduced. Models of pension systems by three leading international organizations are reviewed, compared and commentated....

As Ontario pushes ahead with pension reform to improve retirement security for its citizens, it should consider a “middle-way” solution between current competing visions for reform, according to a report released today by the C.D. Howe institute. In “Helping Ontarians Save for Retirement:...

The primary motivation for retirement savings policy is the view that many of us, if left to our own devices, will not save enough for retirement. Special tax subsidies for employer-sponsored retirement plans — a principal component of the federal policy scheme — have made such plans the...

Poland's new Employee Capital Plans (PPK) scheme, which is mandatory for employers, started to be implemented in July 2019. The article looks at the systemic solutions applied in the programme from the perspective of the concept of the simultaneous reconstruction of the retirement pension...