Accompanied by pension reforms, most European countries have introduced taxdeferred individual retirement accounts as a means to incentivise private, voluntary savings for retirement in the “third pillar”. The introduction of these accounts has opened chances and risks for their owners: on the one hand, households can decide whether to save additionally for retirement and are rewarded with substantial taxdeferrals, on the other hand they may lack the financial knowledge to save voluntarily in these schemse and be left with insufficient retirement savings.

Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) applications and receipts vary greatly by state (McVicar 2006; Bound and Burkhauser 1999; Rupp and Stapleton 1998), which has led to concerns about potential inconsistencies in the application of disability standards. This possibility has prompted numerous Congressional hearings and reports and led the Social Security Advisory Board (2001a; 2001b) to express concern about the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) ability to disentangle the potential causes.

Much of the previous work focuses on the SSDI rolls, allowance rates or award rates; not as much attention has been paid to application rates (also referred to as filing rates) since Rupp and Stapleton (1998) summarized the known factors affecting caseloads.

Work by the Social Security Administration (SSA 1988) finds that economic and demographic differences are significant factors in explaining state SSDI application rates, but their sample lacks information about the underlying health of the population. Strand (2002) advances this work by adding some, albeit limited, health and health insurance information but also covers a very short time period (1997-1999). Duggan and Imberman (2009) explore the relationship between applications and the unemployment rate but do not control for other potentially confounding factors.

Households that delay claiming Social Security are, in effect, making additional purchases of the Social Security annuity. Theoretical calculations show the delayed claiming is optimal, even for high mortality households. Yet most claim well before the theoretically optimal age. This paper investigates whether subjective mortality beliefs contribute to the prevalence of early claiming. The value of delay depends not only on life expectancy, but also on the degree of uncertainty surrounding the age of death. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we show that women approaching retirement understate their probabilities of surviving to age 75 by an average of 10 percentage points, whereas men’s forecasts are, on average, correct. But both men and women exhibit greater confidence of their ability to forecast their age of death, relative to the predictions of life tables. But these subjective mortality beliefs have little effect on the value of Social Security or the optimal claim age, and cannot explain the prevalence of early claiming. We also find that self-assessed survival probabilities do not predict survival after controlling for health and socio-economic status, indicating a potential for medical underwriting to reduce adverse selection in the annuity market.

The pensions landscape in the UK is complex. The foundations of the UK pension system were laid in the 1940s. Since the 1960s, successive governments have changed both the state and private pension elements. This document is intended to provide a description of the UK pensions
system for the purposes of considering pensions policy. It should not be used to make individual pensions decisions.

This Pensions Primer gives a detailed description of the current pensions system and some of the archaeology of these layers. The Pensions Primer is intended for people wanting to learn about UK pensions policy. It should not be used to make individual pensions decisions.

As boomers approach retirement they are less confident about financing their retirement through their own savings or pensions. They are more likely to expect to rely on Social Security. Their health is also declining. As a result they are less optimistic about their retirement, and now have lowered expectations. They anticipate working longer, at least on a part-time basis, for the additional income. This is especially true among working boomers with lower incomes. The recession and financial meltdown have played a role in this pessimism, since attitudes were fairly stable between 1998 and 2003, but have turned more negative this year.

This study examines the determinants and consequences of corporate defined-benefit
pension plan investments in ‘alternative assets’. While there is no universally accepted definition
of the term ‘alternative asset’, this term is commonly used to refer to hedge funds, private equity,
securitized assets (such as collateralized mortgage obligations) and real assets such as
commodities, timber, oil and gas (Edwards and Gaon 2003).

One of the major challenges facing Americans today is how to prepare for a secure retirement. While market ups and downs are unpredictable, people do have control over work and saving decisions that can significantly improve their retirement prospects. This brief uses a simple model to estimate what percent of earnings an individual must save to ensure a financially secure retirement depending on he starts saving, he retires, and how he invests his retirement savings...

This paper estimates the short-run impact of the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA2006) on holdings of employer stock in defined contribution pension plans. PPA2006 allowed participants in plans with employer stock to diversify their holdings...

Both unemployment insurance (UI) extensions and the availability of disability benefits have disincentive effects on job search. But UI extensions can reduce the efficiency cost of disability benefits if UI recipients delay disability application until they exhaust their unemployment benefits.

“For the vast majority of people, annuitising is likely to remain the safest and most appropriate option for converting defined contribution pension savings into a retirement income” says Pensions Policy Institute report

In 2010 the vast majority of people aged between 55 and 75 would not have had a large enough private pension pot to be able to bear the investment and longevity risks associated with Capped Drawdown and would not have been able to meet the Government’s Minimum Income Requirement of having a secure pension income of £20,000 per year, according to new research
published today by the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI).

The research is the fifth report in the PPI’s retirement income and assets series, looking at the future of retirement income and assets in the UK. The report explores the implications of the Government’s new legislation that ends the effective requirement to purchase an annuity by age 75.

This report provides an independent assessment of the potential impact of the state pension reforms set out in the Government’s Green Paper: A State Pension for the 21st Century.

The research was commissioned by the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) who asked the PPI to consider the potential impact of the reforms on Government spending on pensions and on means-tested benefits, on the gainers and losers for the reforms, and on the potential wider impact on private pensions.

This report provides new projections of the percentage of pensioners living in relative income poverty under a continuation of current Government policy on pensions and under alternative policy scenarios. Some of the policy proposals considered relate to the latest proposals suggested by the Government such as the introduction of a single-tier state pension of £140 a week. The research was commissioned by Age UK.