The rapid growth of the market for retirement products in Chile has its origins in the pension reform that was implemented in 1981. But the successful development of an active annuity market also reflects many other factors. This paper summarizes and updates an earlier longer study on the...

This paper discusses the mechanics and regulation of participating and unit-linked variable payout annuities. These annuities offer benefits that are not fixed in either nominal or real terms but depend on the performance of the fund or funds in which the underlying reserve assets are invested,...

A fundamental goal of any pension system is to ensure that members receive an adequate income when they retire. Although traditional defined benefit pension plans set out how pension income will be determined in advance and then strive to deliver this, the growing number of defined contribution...

This paper provides a comparative summary of the payout phase of pension systems in five countries -- Australia, Chile, Denmark, Sweden, and Switzerland. All five countries have large pension systems with mandatory or quasi-mandatory retirement savings schemes. But they exhibit important...

This paper considers the overall structure of the Danish pension system, reviews the relative role of different types of pension institutions, and discusses their asset allocation strategies and investment performance. The paper also examines the regulation and supervision of providers of...

The author studies annuity rates in Chile and relates them with industry competition. He finds (1) that annuity insurance companies paying higher broker commissions paid lower annuity rates; and (2) a structural break of the long-run elasticity of annuity rates to the risk-free rate in 2001....

Empirical analyses of annuities markets have been limited to a few industrial countries and restricted by data limitations. Chile provides excellent conditions for research on annuities because of the depth of its market and the availability of data. The authors use an extensive dataset on...

Germany's pension system was originally designed as a scaled premium system. It formally became a pay-as-you-go system in 1957. Participation in the system is mandatory for all dependent employees and only some groups of self-employed. The system is greatly fragmented in terms of institutions,...

Pension reforms normally focus on the accumulation phase, plus term insurance that provides bnefits for the disabled and for dependent survivors, all of which are immediate concerns. Decumulation of the capital in workers'retirement savings accounts appears to be far in the future. But in the...

This paper analyzes the performance and development of the Mexican pension annuity market established as a consequence of the 1997 pension reform. The Mexican experience displays interesting characteristics providing lessons for other countries that still need to design the decumulation phase of...