Concern about the long-term sustainability of European public pension systems has been a permanent feature for decades due to the unstoppable ageing of the population, but demographic change is not the only factor of concern. A deep economic and financial crisis has been added to this structural...

In pay-as-you go pension systems, automatic balancing mechanisms (ABMs) are designed to face adverse demographic and economic changes. In this respect, ABMs can be defined as a set of pre-determined measures established by law to be applied immediately as required according to an indicator that...

The literature has addressed the problem of pensions and has reached an almost unanimous conclusion that increased longevity is the main cause of the problem. However, in our opinion, longevity itself is not a problem and, therefore, should not be the cause of the problem of pensions. The real...

Pensions may be provided for in a modern society by a mix of several methods, namely by voluntary individual savings, mandatory fully-funded occupational pension systems, mandatory social security financed by pay-as-you-go, and old-fashioned hoarding in cash. Here, we call the specific mixture...