Auto-Enrollment Pension in Poland: Impact on HRM Strategies and Pension Participation Rates

The study aims a critical analysis and preliminary assessment of chosen effects of the implementation of a new type of occupational pension schemes with automatic enrollment: the Employee Capital Plans (PPKs), successively has introduced in Poland since 2019.

Funded Pension Schemes in Aging Societies: A Pure Economic Argument?

This study enables different angel to explore central planners’ considerations regarding pension systems in a modern western market with aging influence. In particular, considerable weight has been given to the effect of the crisis due to the pandemic and frequent market turmoil. This study expands the number of players analyzed in the field and takes into consideration different interests among the current and future generations. In addition, we allow differentiation among earning cohorts. By using the overlapping generation model and Monte Carlo simulations, we find that in a wide macroeconomic range, pension equilibrium surprisingly stands with unfunded pension schemes despite the heavy aging influence. Contrary to the classic economic arguments by the World Bank and IMF that were widespread during the 1980s and 1990s, the choice of a pension system is much more complex. We find that the central planner must take into account not only the aging rhythm and market yield but also other parameters, such as the current and future utility perspective, the government’s debt price, GDP per capita growth rate, risk aversion, and the possibility of market turmoil.

Sustaining the unsustainable? The political sustainability of pensions in Finland and the Netherlands

What makes a pension scheme sustainable? Most answers to this question have revolved around expert assessments of pension schemes’ affordability or adequacy. This study shifts focus from the financial or social sustainability of pension scheme designs to their political sustainability. Political sustainability refers to policymakers’ ability and willingness to sustain pension schemes in the face of perceived challenges. We seek to fill a key research gap concerning the political sustainability of pensions by highlighting the processes of parametric adjustment through which pension schemes are sustained. We show how capital, labour and state actors have been able to actively sustain collective defined benefit (DB) pension schemes in two coordinated market economies, Finland and the Netherlands. The two countries have managed to sustain their DB pensions for relatively long periods of time despite facing the same sustainability challenges that have motivated paradigmatic shifts in other pension systems. We find that sustaining has been successful thanks to a governance culture in which policymakers have been willing to keep all pension scheme parameters open for negotiation and an institutional context that made policymakers able to turn parametric pension reforms into power resources for further reforms. Our findings also explain recent changes in the Netherlands, which moved the Dutch system towards collective defined contribution pensions.

Political Stress and the Sustainability of Funded Pension Schemes: Introduction of a Financial Theory

This study introduces multiplayer game in the modern pension market. Particularly, this study claims that low earners and high earners have different interests when playing in funded pension market scheme. This differentiating is enabled by avoiding the entire society as a single earning cohort. This study using financial position, demonstrates a socio-economic anomaly in the funded pension system, which is in favor of high-earning cohorts at the expense of low-earning cohorts. This anomaly is realized by a lack of insurance and exposure to financial and systemic risks. Furthermore, the anomaly could lead to a pension re-reform back to an unfunded scheme system, due mostly to political pressure. This study found that a minimum pension guarantee is a rebalance mechanism for this anomaly, which increases the probability of a sustainable pension scheme. Nowadays when countries try to balance between social expenses and awaking financial markets, one may find this theory highly relevant. It is obviously one of the cases where social targets meat financial equilibrium and here they are in the same side. Specifically, it is argued that implementing the guarantee with an intra-generational, risk-sharing mechanism is the most efficient way to reduce the effect of this abnormality.

The Pension Schemes Act 2021: new duties for trustees and managers of pension fund trusts

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the new “climate duties” that are created for pension trustees under the Pension Schemes Act 2021. An evaluation is provided of the Act’s section on “climate change risk.” The article suggests that while more could have been done to enforce climate change risk amongst pension trustees, the regulatory regime should nevertheless be seen as a positive development. Indeed, the new statutory requirements for the increased management and reporting of climate change risk should assist in making this important environmental issue be considered as a “financially materially risk” throughout the sector.

IMPACT OF DIFFERENT LIFE-CYCLE SAVING STRATEGIES AND UNEMPLOYMENT ON INDIVIDUAL SAVINGS IN DEFINED CONTRIBUTION PENSION SCHEME IN SLOVAKIA

Searching for the optimal saving strategy is often tied with the life-cycle strategies where only the age of a saver is considered for setting the allocation profile between equities and bonds. Our article contributes to the debate by looking at the performance and adequacy risks arising from applying age-based saving strategies for savers in funded pension schemes. As many studies have proven the shift of the risk onto savers in defined contribution pension schemes under various saving strategies, we contribute to the debate by providing simulations of expected accumulated savings via funded pension scheme under the various life-cycle income profiles and existence of unemployment risk. Using the resampling simulation technique, we compare the fixed and age-based strategies of three different agents with various life-cycle income paths and different unemployment risk. We compare the expected amount of savings and calculate relative indicators comparing the expected monthly benefits, income replacement rate. We look closely on the impact of unemployment on the value of savings and calculate the unemployment factor explaining the value of savings lost due to the periods of unemployment. By combining life-cycle income functions of individuals with different education level and unemployment risk, we show that decisions of implementing low risk saving strategies are suboptimal and lead to a substantial decrease in replacement ratios not only for higher income cohorts but especially for the lowest ones. At the same time, we prove that employing low risk saving strategy leads to the increase of adequacy risk especially driven by the unemployment risk that is higher for lower education individuals. We conclude that age-based life-cycle saving strategies, where the remaining saving horizon is the only factor defining the allocation profile is not the optimal saving strategy and other factors should be considered as well when searching for optimal saving strategy.

Saving with Group or Individual Personal Pension Schemes: How Much Difference Does It Make?

The quality of services provided by institutional investors has attracted considerable attention. This paper adds to the debate by showing that institutional differences in setting up defined contribution personal schemes have an economically and statistically significant impact on the returns. Using a sample of 10,326 UK defined contribution personal pension funds over July 1990–June 2019, I show that pension funds that have a third party involved in contract setting and subsequent oversight deliver 0.96%–1.67% higher gross returns and charge 0.7% lower fees than pension funds offered directly to the public without any well-informed third party involved. I also show that the introduction of additional governance bodies in 2015 resulted in a widening of the performance gap, which further supports the notion that investment governance has a material impact on fund performance. The results highlight the importance of investment oversight and call for more protection for individual investors. This paper was accepted by Tomasz Piskorski, finance.

Altersrenten und sozialer Ausgleich in Deutschland und Österreich – ein Vergleich anhand von Modellrechnungen

Die Gegenüberstellung der Rentenansprüche für einheitliche, idealtypische Biografien ermöglicht den Vergleich von Unterschieden der Rentensysteme selbst. Die von der OECD erstellten Modellbiografien mit durchgehenden Erwerbsverläufen, abschlagsfreiem Renteneintritt und stabilen Einkommenspositionen bilden den Ausgangspunkt für den Vergleich der Rentenversicherungen Deutschlands und Österreichs. Die Vorgehensweise der OECD wird dargestellt, sofern erforderlich korrigiert, aktualisiert und weiterentwickelt. Zusätzlich werden Arbeitslosigkeit, vorzeitiger Renteneintritt sowie Kindererziehungszeiten berücksichtigt. Durch diese Ergänzungen werden eine höhere Realitätsanbindung erreicht und Elemente des sozialen Ausgleichs einbezogen. Es zeigt sich, dass die österreichische Pensionsversicherung in jeder Konstellation deutlich höhere Leistungen gewährt, die Elemente des sozialen Ausgleichs den Abstand teils vergrößern, teils verringern. Abstract: Old-age Pensions and Social Equalization in Germany and Austria – a Comparison Using Model Calculations A comparison of pension entitlements based on ideal-type biographies allows for an identification of differences between pensions systems. We compare public pension schemes in Germany and Austria, starting with the OECD’s model biographies. These biographies are signified by stable employment careers and income positions, and regular retirement without deductions. The OECD’s approach is discussed, revised, updated, and amended. Periods of unemployment and childcare and early retirement are included. This leads to more realistic life courses and means an inclusion of redistributive measures. The Austrian pension insurance delivers higher benefits in every constellation discussed; redistributive elements partly increase, partly reduce differences.