We employ a life-cycle model with income risk to analyze how tax-deferred individual accounts affect households' savings for retirement. We consider voluntary accounts as opposed to mandatory accounts with minimum contribution rates. We contrast add-on accounts with carve-out accounts that...

This paper investigates the international spillovers of government debt and the associated risk of inflation within a monetary union when countries have different pension systems. I use a stochastic two-country two-period overlapping-generations model, where one country has PAYG pensions and the...

The global financial crisis affected also Polish pension market. Low or negative rate return on pension capital accumulated in Open Pension Funds led to social disappointment and growth of feeling of social insecurity. Prolonged financial crisis together with sluggish economic growth forced...

We analyze the rationale for the pay-as-you-go (paygo) pension system existence on diversi fication grounds. A continuous-time portfolio choice setting is built, basing on Merton (1971)´s analysis, where a reasonable balance between the taking account of the economic and fi nancial facets of...

Economists have long been puzzled by the low demand for life annuities. To shed new light on this puzzle, we study payout choices in the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System, where each retiree must choose between a lump sum and a life annuity. Notably, the average life annuity we study is...

We analyze the long-standing “annuity puzzle” through the lens of behavioral economics. We provide novel evidence that lessens the extent of the puzzle and shed some additional light on the real drivers of the decision to annuitize. Last, we discuss the policy implications of our findings

This paper presents long term projections of the cost of public pensions in Australia, taking into account behavioural effects. I assume retirees make financial decisions to maximise their lifetime utilities, and their consumption and asset allocation react to policy changes. I find that the...

This paper develops a life-cycle utility model of the preferences of retirees, with joint consideration of bequest motive, housing decision and public pension. The model parameters are calibrated to the ABS data of Household Expenditure Survey and Survey of Income and Housing. The calibrated...

Most Americans have not estimated how much they need to save for retirement. This lack of awareness may contribute to low levels of retirement savings. We investigate the relation between planning and retirement wealth. Those who have estimated how much they need to save for retirement have...

Regulation in countries that have adopted defined contribution (DC) pension systems based on savings accounts typically includes minimum return guarantees (MRG) provisions to limit the risk of financial downturns. This paper studies the consequences of this regulation over asset allocation...