Suchergebnisse

The Pensions Commission is to make its recommendations on pension policy reform later this year, in the light of comments on the challenges identified in its first Report. Widespread agreement on the need for such reform is partly a consequence of problems which have already surfaced, such as the insolvency of some pension schemes, moves to curtail benefits and mis-selling scandals. However the main impetus comes from the fact, clearly demonstrated by the Pensions Commission (2004), that for pensioners to enjoy the current relative standard of living in fifty years time will require people either to (i) retire later (ii) save more; or (iii) pay higher taxes. In the Commission's view the key issues are to find a consensus on the appropriate combination of these three, or of the alternative of lower pensioner incomes, and to find ways of bringing about such an outcome. We focus on aspects of such a reform and suggest one measure which could be implemented without further ado.

While the UK may be facing much less serious pension difficulties over the next 50 years than other countries, the issue should not be ignored. Increasing the retirement age would be possible, but funded pensions are also an important option. The UK government has used marketing to encourage funded pensions, but policy changes would also help. Ultimately, the basic state pension could become funded.

"This paper states that German pension policies have taken a new path. After describing the major characteristics of the German post-war pension system, the paper will analyse the major reforms since 1989 and the way they changed and challenged the main characteristics of the pension system. As a next step, the paper will revise the reforms in several different aspects. Firstly it will argue that the way of decision-making changed: the role of the social partners and of inter-party consensus-building diminished; the actors' constellation became more pluralistic. Secondly, policy change will be discussed in light of Peter Hall's concept, concluding that a policy paradigm change took place - incrementally. Thirdly, against the background of Esping-Andersen's welfare typologies, it will argue that there is an initial shift (especially in ideas) from a conservative pension model towards a liberal one." (author's abstract)

Résumé Lorsqu'on cherche à évaluer la situation budgétaire des systèmes publics de retraites, on doit projeter les évolutions démographiques à un horizon de plusieurs dizaines d'années. L'exactitude de telles projections et les conséquences sur les retraites futures peuvent être analysées à l'aide de simulations stochastiques de population. Les études effectuées sur des pays et utilisant ce type de projections montrent que l'incertitude démographique rend les prévisions de retraites à long terme très imprécises. Ces études montrent que l'ampleur de l'incertitude est bien plus grande que celle obtenue en se fondant sur des scénarios (haut-bas) ou des variantes du même ordre. Cela ne doit pas être interprété comme une incitation à l'inaction ; les pertes importantes de bien-être dans les cas défavorables constituent, au contraire, un bon argument en faveur de politiques actives. Dans l'analyse de politiques de retraites, les projections stochastiques de population peuvent être utilisées pour mettre en évidence les risques démographiques. Une analyse explicite de ce risque est particulièrement utile pour les politiques qui lient le niveau des retraites aux évolutions démographiques, en ajustant par exemple les prestations en fonction des variations de l'espérance de vie ou en passant à un système non provisionné à cotisations définies. JEL Code: H55, J11

This article analyses how the social objective of protecting lower earners from old-age poverty is supported at the EU level. It argues that although the Member States are responsible for pension policy, the EU framework could empower domestic social policy actors by providing them with cognitive and normative resources. The analysis is based on the situation in three countries: Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom. The article shows that there are well developed shared data and indicators, but that there is limited scope for common interpretation of the data. There is also a lack of common policy solutions due to two diverging pension reform paradigms: the adequacy paradigm and the sustainability paradigm. Although the latter increasingly has incorporated an adequacy perspective that limits pure cost containment policies, Europe 2020 limits the scope for positive social policy measures linked to the adequacy approach because it prioritizes a low tax wedge and growth-enhancing initiatives.