The direct financial impact of the financial crisis has been to deal a heavy blow to investment-based pensions; many workers lost a substantial portion of their retirement saving. The financial sector implosion produced an economic crisis for the rest of the economy via high unemployment and...

Considering the growing role of private and funded pension provision and the sensitivity of private pension provision to the economic climate, there is an increasing need of comparable and reliable information on private pension plans in order to better monitor retirement income adequacy and the...

To adapt pension systems to demographic trends, many countries are reducing pay-as-you-go public pension levels and lifting retirement ages. In this context, funded pensions could play a major role to avoid adequacy gaps. Yet, as this paper shows, the coverage of funded private pensions, as...

In the wake of the global pandemic known as COVID-19, retirees, along with those hoping to retire someday, have been shocked into a new awareness of the need for better risk management tools to handle longevity and aging. This paper offers an assessment of the status quo prior to the spread of...

People who delay claiming Social Security receive higher lifelong benefits upon retirement. We survey individuals on their willingness to delay claiming later, if they could receive a lump sum in lieu of a higher annuity payment. Using a moment-matching approach, we calibrate a lifecycle model...

People who delay claiming Social Security receive higher lifelong benefits upon retirement. We survey individuals on their willingness to delay claiming later, if they could receive a lump sum in lieu of a higher annuity payment. Using a moment-matching approach, we calibrate a lifecycle model...

Many Americans claim Social Security benefits early, though this leaves them with lower benefits throughout retirement. We build a lifecycle model that closely tracks claiming patterns under current rules, and we use it to predict claiming delays if, by delaying benefits, people received a lump...

I review the academic literature on defined contribution retirement plan design and participant behavior. While adoption of automatic enrollment has significantly increased participation rates, recent studies find the long-run effects on savings are smaller than the short-run effects, with some...

We study the selection of private equity managers (GPs) for over 100,000 capital commitments between 1990 and 2019 by global institutional investors (LPs) choosing from a plausible contemporaneous opportunity set. In addition to chasing GPs with high prior performance, LPs have large...

We study how plan sponsors choose investment management firms from their opportunity set when delegating $1.6 trillion in assets between 2002 and 2017. Two factors play an influential role in choice: pre-hiring returns, and pre-existing personal connections between personnel at the plan (or...