Suchergebnisse

To meet the challenges of an ageing population, eligibility ages for state pensions have increased, early retirement arrangements have been abolished, and a substantial part of the risk and responsibility for an adequate standard of living after retirement has been shifted from the government, employers and pension funds to individuals and private households. Consequently, policy makers have become more concerned with whether individuals are able to make pension-related decisions that are in their own best interest.

In many countries, pension reforms reduce the generosity of collective pensions and shift the responsibility for an adequate standard of living after retirement to individuals and their households. Individuals have to make more decisions than before on supplementary pension savings, on how to invest their DC pension assets, etc. Making such decisions is challenging, since retirement planning requires intertemporal decision-making under uncertainty and is subject to behavioural and psychological biases. Many studies in different countries have shown that the large majority lack the interest, knowledge, or skills to make such decisions in a way that is in their own best interest. Governments and the pension industry try to assist individuals in making the right decisions through pension communication. This paper focuses on experiences with pension communication, and the lessons to be learned from them. First, the paper provides an overview of the literature, addressing how pension communication is organized across countries and what can be said about its efficiency. Second, using Dutch longitudinal data at the individual level, we analyse the relations between communication (receiving an annual pension overview), pension knowledge, and conscious pension decision-making. We investigate associations and aim at estimating causal effects exploiting the timing of events.

This article analyses the economics of financing banking supervision and attempts to respond to two questions: What are the most common financing practices? Can the differences in current financing practices be explained by country specific factors? We perform an empirical analysis that identifies the determinants of the financing structure of banks´ prudential supervision using a sample of 90 banking supervisors (central banks and financial authorities). We conclude that supervisors in central banks are more likely publicly funded, while financial authorities are more likely funded via a levy on the regulated banks. The financing rule is also explained by the structure of the financial systems. Public funding is more likely in bank oriented structures. Finally, the geographical factor is also significant: European bank supervisors are more oriented towards the private funding regime. In general, we do not find evidence of the role of the political factor, the size of the economy, the level of development and the legal tradition