This paper assesses the impact of different quantitative approaches to regulate investment risk on the retirement income stemming from defined contribution (DC) pension plans. It looks at how such regulations affect the spectrum of investment policies available and, through this channel, how they affect the retirement income that an individual may expect from a DC pension plan.

Since the creation of the Old Age Pension scheme (Algemene Ouderdomswet, henceforth; AOW) in 1957 some important changes in its regulation have taken place. The purpose of this study is to analyse the redistribution of income for different individuals in the AOW taking into account these changes in regulation and different groups of individuals according to their gender, civil status and income.

This paper investigates whether mutual fund families acting as trustees of 401(k) plans display favoritism toward their own funds. Using a hand-collected dataset on retirement investment options, we show that poorly-performing funds are less likely to be removed from and more likely to be added to a 401(k) menu if they are affiliated with the plan trustee.

Pensions are inherently risky because they are long-term contracts. These contracts can involve up to four groups of actors: individuals, governments, employers and financial-services providers. Uncertainty about the future complicates planning for all these actors: if things turn out better than expected, who will reap the gains? If things turn out worse, who will bear the cost? No one wants to bear risk, but, in most cases, someone has to. Risks in pension systems have, in the past, been poorly measured or even just
ignored.

Intergenerational risk sharing by funded pension schemes may increase welfare in an ex ante sense. However, it also suffers from a time inconsistency problem. In particular, young generations may be unwilling to start participating in a pension scheme if this requires them to make huge transfers to older generations.

The life insurance and pensions sector manages large funds with a truly long time horizon. These investors therefore naturally seek long-dated assets to match their liabilities. Real assets or real cash flows are preferred in order to hedge against inflation, which is particularly relevant for pension funds in order to assure a decent purchasing power for their clients’ retirement income.

EU social and employment policies increasingly emphasise extending working life and increasing effective retirement age. Over the past few years, it has become more common for Europeans to work beyond the age at which they are entitled to a statutory or occupational pension.

Since the creation of the Old Age Pension scheme (Algemene Ouderdomswet, henceforth; AOW) in 1957 some important changes in its regulation have taken place. The purpose of this study is to analyse the redistribution of income for different individuals in the AOW taking into account these changes in regulation and different groups of individuals according to their gender, civil status and income.

This paper examines the role of ethnic networks in disability program take-up among working-age immigrants in the United States.

The life insurance and pensions sector manages large funds with a truly long time horizon. These investors therefore naturally seek long-dated assets to match their liabilities. Real assets or real cash flows are preferred in order to hedge against inflation, which is particularly relevant for pension funds in order to assure a decent purchasing power for their clients’ retirement income.

In the struggle of historical institutionalism to explain the origin and change of institutions, the state-of-the-art is currently represented by Streeck and Thelen’s (2005) study Beyond continuity. The book departs from the previous, bifurcated literature, which divides institutional evolution into long periods of stasis, characterised by incremental change and short, sudden bursts of institutional innovation. The authors, in fact, focus on change as a combination of process and result. In particular, they show how a rigid dichotomy between typically path dependent incremental adaptation (or simply continuity) and radical transformation does not capture important transformative processes common to advanced political economies. Most innovatively, their contribution focuses on examples of radical but at the same time gradual transformation.