Pension benefit guarantee policies have been introduced in several countries to protect private pension plan members from the loss of income that would occur if a plan was underfunded when the sponsoring firm terminates a plan. Most of these public insurance schemes face financial difficulty and...

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the annual and of the long-term performance of personal pension funds relative to their Primary Prospectus Benchmarks (PPBs) and T-bills. The study covers 9,659 personal pension funds from across all 30 ABI investment sectors that operated in the...

This paper investigates retirees' optimal purchases of fixed and variable longevity income annuities using their defined contribution (DC) plan assets and given their expected Social Security benefits. As an alternative, we also evaluate using plan assets to boost Social Security benefits...

Most research relating to the adequacy of the Australian retirement system has concentrated on Pillars 1 and 2. This paper indicates that there is a high probability that Pillars 3 and 4 will be needed to ensure an adequate standard of living in retirement, and in most scenarios, the...

Microeconomic theory suggests that annuities are favorable because they ensure a steady path of consumption no matter how long the annuitant will live. As a promising attempt to explain why actual annuitization rates are lower than expected, it has recently been argued that consumers do not use...

Workers' participation in a retirement plan, either through an employment-based arrangement or individually, is a crucial factor in accumulating sufficient resources to pay for expenses in retirement. This paper examines the distribution of total assets held in individual account retirement...

This research report examines investor behaviour in the context of New Zealand's KiwiSaver retirement savings scheme, and applies a quantitative approach, using a unique purpose-built KiwiSaver provider annual report database. The KiwiSaver market is still in its infancy, having only started in...

Cluster analysis is used to identify homogeneous groups of members of USS in terms of risk attitudes. There are two distinct clusters of members in their 40s and 50s. One had previously ‘engaged' with USS by making additional voluntary contributions. It typically had higher pay, longer tenure,...

We use a unique dataset from a large retail bank to examine the impact of financial advice on personal retirement savings. We document that retirement-related financial advice is associated with an increase in tax-exempt retirement accounts and equity investments, both at the extensive as well...

This paper uses stochastic simulations on calibrated models to assess the steady state impact of different pension arrangements in an environment where financial markets are less than perfect. Surprisingly little is known about the optimal split between funded and unfunded systems when there are...