The paper seeks to explain the huge cross country variation in private pension funding,shaped by historical choice made when universal pension systems were created after theGreat Depression. According to Perotti and von Thadden (2006), large inflationaryshocks due to war damage devastated middle...

In this paper we focus on an adverse effect of extensive choice widely known as "choice overload". We draw on the case of Swedish funded pensions for illustration and analyze consequences of the design that allowed for maximizing the choice set. The analysis shows limitations of employing the...

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...