A paper presented to the International Workshop on Civil Service and Military Pension Arrangements in Selected Countries of the Asia-Pacific organized by PIE, Hitotsubashi University supported by RIPPA held at Hitotsubashi Collaboration Center, Tokyo, Japan on 20-21 January 2011

In Japan, annuities are not currently very popular as a means to finance retirement, since many people rely on government social security benefits in old age. When annuities are sold, they tend not to be life payouts but rather term-certain products. In this sense, the annuity puzzle also...

This paper reviews the two main methods used by government Social Security departments to draw up the so-called actuarial balance of the pay-as-you-go pension system, focusing especially on results, methodology and actuarial issues. The specific models studied are those in the United States,...

The public pension system of Japan provides coverage for all, irrespective of occupation and income. Corporate pension plans provide additional benefits over the public pension in order to meet the diversified financial needs in retirement and play a key role in enriching people‘s life after...

Rapid population ageing has led to repeated adjustments to the parameters of Japan's public pension scheme over the last decade, all aimed at achieving long run financial balance. The most recent attempt, describe in this paper, introduces an adjustment mechanism that links future benefit levels...