Pension systems combine government and privately-sponsored support to finance a suitable standard of living during retirement. Pension systems can be financed through pay-as-you-go (PAYG) or through pre-funding. PAYG pension schemes finance old- age retirement benefits in one particular period...

Pension systems around Europe are being reformed for several decades already. Main objectives of the reforms are to enable people to have adequate income at retirement and to ensure the system's financial sustainability. Many European countries implemented policies aiming at diversification 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...

Alpha, or outperformance of a benchmark, can be generated in many ways within a portfolio. It can be created by picking the top hedge fund managers, or by capturing the illiquidity premium via alternative assets. Venture capital is a major source of alpha for long-term investors. Alpha can also...

Whereas there is ample evidence that life-contingent income products (life annuities) have the potential to improve individual welfare, combining them with health-contingent income products (resulting in so-called life care annuities) would serve to further increase welfare for individuals who...

A well established believe in the pension industry is that collective pension funds should take more stock market risk (compared to individual retirement accounts) since risk may be shared with future generations. We extend the OLG model of Gollier (2008) by adding labor income risk in the...

We investigate optimal investment and drawdown decisions in retirement, and show that the asset mix and drawdown strategy vary significantly with financial circumstances and preferences. Loss aversion preferences lead to hedging strategies to secure the target consumption through use of...

Retirement outcomes would be improved if retirees had access to insurance products that linked guaranteed, inflation-adjusted income to life cycle investment portfolio strategies. Suitable retirement planning for individual, defined contribution plans must concurrently account for trade-offs...

Deutschland und Österreich sind von einem relativ ähnlichen Startpunkt aus in verschiedene rentenpolitische Richtungen aufgebrochen. Während Österreich aber weiterhin die traditionelle umlagefinanzierte öffentliche Rentenversicherung ins Zentrum der Alterssicherungspolitik stellt, erhielt...

Introduced 20 years ago as a part of the 2001 pension reform, the Riester pension is meant to function as an essential component of the German pension system with the aim of compensating for decreasing public pensions. However, data collected by the SOEP show that this objective has not yet been...