Reinventing the Retirement Paradigm

Edited by Robert L. Clark and Olivia S. Mitchell

Pension Research Council Series

How should pension and retirement plans deal with an aging workforce, projected labor shortages, low savings rates, and rising pension and health costs?
Companies are altering, amending, and terminating the conventional plans in the face of poor investment performance and new methods of pension accounting
A leading group of international pensions and retirement academics and experts consider the issues
Covers employment trends, pension accounting and investment, the changing meaning of work and retirement, and the eroding trust in traditional pension offerings

Reinventing the Retirement Paradigm

Edited by Robert L. Clark and Olivia S. Mitchell

Pension Research Council Series

Description

This book explores how rising pension and healthcare costs along with workforce aging are affecting pension and retirement planning around the world. Many middle-aged workers now realize that they will have to work longer than intended as they begin to recognize that their retirement resources will be inadequate to finance retirement consumption. Volatile capital markets, rising medical-care costs and low saving rates make retirement behavior and policy a moving target. Olivia Mitchell, Executive Director of the Pension Research Council at Wharton and Robert L. Clark, Professor of Business Management and Economics at North Carolina State University, explore these themes with colleagues, touching on a diverse set of issues ranging from employment trends to pension accounting and investment to retirement system overhaul. They illustrate how employers are actively reformulating the meaning of work and retirement, seeking to encourage more people to work longer than ever before in the face of projected labor shortages. At the same time, public and private trust in traditional pension offerings is rapidly eroding, as companies alter, amend and terminate their conventional plans in the face of poor investment performance and new methods of pension accounting. Experts from the UK, the US, Japan, Sweden and Canada offer international perspectives on the evolving institutions of retirement practice. This book provides readers a range of insights and strategies not available in other volumes, and it represents an invaluable addition to the PRC/OUP series. It will be particularly valuable for managers working toward more efficient pension plans; to scholars and policymakers seeking to maximize pension design and effectiveness and to actuaries and tax specialists concerned with pension regulation. The Pension Research Council at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania was founded 50 years ago to encourage research and teaching on pensions and retirement security. Council projects address the long-term issues that underlie contemporary concerns and seek to broaden public understanding of these complex arrangements through research onto their social, economic, legal, actuarial and financial foundations of privately and publicly provided benefits.

Reinventing the Retirement Paradigm

Edited by Robert L. Clark and Olivia S. Mitchell

Pension Research Council Series

Part I: The State of Play
1. The Changing Retirement Paradigm, Robert L. Clark and Olivia S. Mitchell
2. Looking Backward, Looking Forward: Where is Pension Policy Headed?, James Klein
3. Reality Testing for Pension Reform, Pamela Perun and Eugene Steuerle
Part II: Redefining Retirement
4. Older Workers: Employment and Retirement Trends, Patrick Purcell
5. Work and Retirement Plans Among Older Americans, Katharine Abraham and Susan Houseman
6. The Future of Pension Plan Design, David McCarthy
7. Strategies to Retain Older Workers, Janemarie Mulvey and Steven Nyce
8. Developments in Phased Retirement, Robert Hutchens and Kerry Papps
Part III: Manating the Retirement Promise
9. Educating Pension Plan Participants, William J. Arnone
10. Changes in Accounting Practices Will Drive Pension Paradigm Shifts, Douglas Fore
11. Why Pension Fund Management Needs a Paradigm Shift, Keith Ambachtsheer
12. Profitable Prudence: the Case For Public Employer Defined Benefit Plans, Gary Anderson and Keith Brainard
Part IV: In Serach of a New Pension Paradigm: The Global Outlook
13. The Future of Pensions in Canada, Silvana Pozzebon
14. The Future of Retirement in Sweden, Annika Sundén
15. Risk Management and Pension Plan Choice in Japan, Masaharu Usuki

Reinventing the Retirement Paradigm

Edited by Robert L. Clark and Olivia S. Mitchell

Pension Research Council Series

Author Information

Contributors:

Katharine Abraham, Professor of Survey Methodology and Adjunt Professor of Economics, University of Maryland
Keith Ambachtsheer, President and founder of KPA Advisory Services Ltd.
Gary Anderson, Executive Director of the Texas Municipal Retirement System
William J. Arnone, Partner in the Human Capital Practice of Ernst & Young LLP, New Yrok
Keith Brainard, Research Director, National Association of State Retirement Administrators (NASRA)
Robert L. Clark, Professor of Business Management and Economics, North Carolina State University
Douglas Fore, Principal Research Fellow, TIAA-CREF Institute
Susan Houseman, Senior Economicst at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research
Robert Hutchens, Professor of Labor Economics, New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University
James Klein, President of the American Benefits Council
David McCarthy, Faculty Member, Imperial College, University of London
Olivia S. Mitchell, Executive Director of the Pension Research Council, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Janemarie Mulvey, Assistant Director of the Research Information Center at Watson Wyatt Worldwide
Steven Nyce, Senior Retirement Research Associate, Research and INformation Centre of Watson Wyatt Worldwide
Pamela Perun, independent consultant on retirement income policy issues
Kerry Papps, doctoral candidate in labor economics, Cornell University
Silvana Pozzebon, Assocaiate Professor, Department of Human Resources Management, HEC Montreal, University of Montreal
Patrick Purcell, CRS
Eugene Steuerle, Senior Fellow at the The Urban Institute, and Co-Director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center
Annika Sundén, Senior Economist at the Swedish National Social Insurance Board and a Research Associate at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College
Masaharu Usuki, Senior Research Fellow at NLI Research Institute, a research affiliate of Nippon Life Insurance Company