The Future of Multi-Pillar Pensions

Cambridge University Press, 6/21/2012
EAN 9781107022263, ISBN10: 1107022266

Hardcover, 434 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm
Language: English

Pension systems are under serious pressure worldwide. This pressure stems not only from the well-known trend of population aging, but also from those of increasing heterogeneity of the population and increasing labour mobility. The current economic crisis has aggravated these problems, thereby exposing the vulnerability of many pension schemes to macroeconomic shocks. This book reconsiders the multi-pillar pension scheme against the background of these pressures. It adopts an integral perspective and asks how the pension system as a whole contributes to the three basic functions of pension schemes: facilitating life-cycle financial planning, insuring idiosyncratic risks and sharing macroeconomic risks across generations. It focuses on the optimal balance between the various pension pillars and on the optimal design of each of the schemes. It sketches a number of economic trade-offs, showing that countries may opt for different pension schemes depending on how they react to these trade-offs.

List of figures
List of tables
List of boxes
List of contributors
1. Introduction Ed Westerhout
2. Population ageing and financial and social sustainability challenges of pension systems in Europe
a cross-national perspective Asghar Zaidi
3. The World Bank's pension policy framework and the Dutch pension system
a paradigm for the multi-pillar design? Richard Hinz
4. Credit crisis and pensions
international scope Nicholas Barr
5. Designing the pension system
conceptual framework Lans Bovenberg and Casper van Ewijk
6. Private versus public risk sharing
should governments provide reinsurance? Henning Bohn
7. The redistribution of macroeconomic risks by Dutch institutions Leon Bettendorf and Thijs Knaap
8. The consequences of indexed debt for welfare and funding ratios in the Dutch pension system Roel Beetsma and Alessandro Bucciol
9. Rational pensions for irrational people
behavioral science lessons for the Netherlands Zvi Bodie and Henriëtte Prast
10. Opportunities for improving pension wealth decumulation in the Netherlands Jeffrey Brown and Theo Nijman
11. The future of multi-pillar pension systems Lans Bovenberg and Casper van Ewijk
Index.