The Effect of Aging on Pensions
The main topic of this thesis is the effect of aging on pension systems. As the population of many Western- European countries ages, this topic has gained wide attention in the popular press, the policy debate and the academic literature.
Chapters 2, 3 and 4 analyze the effect of aging on intergenerational risk sharing, public pension expenditure, and the asset allocation of pension funds respectively. Chapter 5 shows how a pension fund can improve participants welfare of by facilitating financial transactions between generations. Chapter 6 is more general and focuses on the politics of reforms of welfare programs, including pension reforms. Finally, the seventh chapter is unrelated to pensions; it analyzes the association between media coverage and consumer confidence.
Before discussing the content of the chapters, it is useful to first discuss the two central concepts of the title of this thesis, aging and pensions.