Changes in subjective well-being with retirement: assessing savings adequacy

Does retirement represent a state of relative prosperity or unanticipated hardship? To assess whether individuals are successful in smoothing their well-being across the transition to retirement we analyse measures of subjective well-being (SWB) in the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. Specifically, this research examines retirees’ current standard of living, financial security and overall happiness relative to their pre-retirement levels. It is found SWB either improves or remains constant for the large majority of individuals as they retire from the labour force. However, there are significant disparities in changes in well-being with retirement among the group of retirees. In particular, the subset of individuals who are forced to retire early due to job loss or their own health, and who find their income in retirement to be much less than expected, report marked declines in their SWB with retirement.     

The choice of trade regime: delayed reform under productivity fluctuations and cost of structural change

Despite the advantages of international trade, a number of countries have stuck to restricted trade regimes, allowing the productivity gap between themselves and the “trading” world to become huge before turning to a more outward oriented trade policy. As a supplement to the existing explanations for the hesitation to change trade regime, we present a model where the international productivity development shared by open economies, is uncertain. Due to uncertainty, it might be optimal to wait and maybe exercise the option to change trade regime later, i.e. to delay a trade reform.     

ASSET ALLOCATION AND ANNUITY-PURCHASE STRATEGIES TO MINIMIZE THE PROBABILITY OF FINANCIAL RUIN

In this paper, we derive the optimal investment and annuitization strategies for a retiree whose objective is to minimize the probability of lifetime ruin, namely the probability that a fixed consumption strategy will lead to zero wealth while the individual is still alive. Recent papers in the insurance economics literature have examined utility-maximizing annuitization strategies. Others in the probability, finance, and risk management literature have derived shortfall-minimizing investment and hedging strategies given a limited amount of initial capital. This paper brings the two strands of research together. Our model pre-supposes a retiree who does not currently have sufficient wealth to purchase a life annuity that will yield her exogenously desired fixed consumption level. She seeks the asset allocation and annuitization strategy that will minimize the probability of lifetime ruin. We demonstrate that because of the binary nature of the investor's goal, she will not annuitize any of her wealth until she can fully cover her desired consumption with a life annuity. We derive a variational inequality that governs the ruin probability and the optimal strategies, and we demonstrate that the problem can be recast as a related optimal stopping problem which yields a free-boundary problem that is more tractable. We numerically calculate the ruin probability and optimal strategies and examine how they change as we vary the mortality assumption and parameters of the financial model. Moreover, for the special case of exponential future lifetime, we solve the (dual) problem explicitly. As a byproduct of our calculations, we are able to quantify the reduction in lifetime ruin probability that comes from being able to manage the investment portfolio dynamically and purchase annuities.     

退休对认知能力的短期和长期影响*——兼论延迟退休的“健康红利”

本文使用中国健康与养老追踪调查(CHARLS) 2011—2015年3轮调查数据，通过研究退休与认知衰退的关系，探讨了延迟退休对认知能力的影响。估计结果表明，退休在短期能够抑制认知衰退，但是从长期来看退休对认知有负面的影响。具体来说，在退休后3年内，退休对认知衰退有抑制作用，在退休大约3年~4年后，退休对认知的积极影响逐渐变为负面影响。按性别分组的估计结果表明，退休对认知能力的负面长期影响对男性而言更突出。本文的研究揭示了退休对认知能力的短期和长期影响存在差异。从政策的角度讲，适当提高法定退休年龄能够缩短退休持续时间，对抑制认知衰退有积极作用，即延迟退休能够带来认知方面的“健康红利”。     

Optimal Social Insurance and Health Inequality

This paper integrates into public economics a biologically founded, stochastic process of individual aging. The novel approach enables us to quantitatively characterize the optimal joint design of health and retirement policy behind the veil of ignorance for today and in response to future medical progress. Calibrating our model to Germany, our analysis suggests that the current social insurance policy instruments are set close to the (constrained) socially optimal levels, given proportional contribution rates for health and pension finance, the equivalence principle in the pension system, and a common statutory retirement age. Future progress in medical technology calls for a potentially drastic increase in health spending and a higher retirement age without lowering the pension contribution rate. Interestingly, from an ex ante point of view, medical progress and higher health spending are in conflict with the goal to reduce health inequality.     

科学发展视野中我国养老基金缺口的对策研究

养老保障是社会保障的重要组成部分,起保障老年人基本生活的作用。目前,我国老龄化压力增大",未富先老"趋势明显,养老基金需求人数的增长大大超过供款人数的增加。针对养老基金的缺口,应结合本国国情,依据科学发展要求,剖析中国养老保障面临的困境,并找到促进我国养老保险制度实现科学发展的路径。建议实施延长工作年限、促进老年人群再就业和再择业并将养老金发放与缴费年限敏更感挂钩等措施,通过就业政策的调整和退休制度的完善,实现老龄化劳动人口和青壮年劳动人口就业的更合理配置,最终通过劳动生产率的提高彻底解决养老基金缺口的困境,实现经济社会又好又快发展。     

激励和限制相结合的企业弹性退休制度探讨

随着人口老龄化,提高退休年龄成为趋势。文章认为,延长退休年龄涉及到就业、企业成本和社会公平等诸多问题,因此,必须在保证就业和社会公平目标下延迟退休年龄。文章指出,建立以最低工作年限为法定退休条件的弹性退休制度,需要通过经济激励,引导民营企业参与,并以政策限制和避免国有企业滥用制度。     

社会工作在居家养老体系中的介入

近年来,居家养老服务逐步在全国各地发展起来,成为一种新型的养老方式。社会工作在居家养老体系中的介入有直接方法和间接方法,直接的方法包括老年个案工作、老年小组工作、老年社区工作,间接的方法包括老年社会工作行政、老年社会政策。介入模式可以从宏观、中观、微观三个层面来研究。将社会工作的专业方法引入居家养老服务中,可以促进居家养老服务的发展和完善。     

老龄化时代社会养老模式研究

中国已于2000年步入老龄社会,养老模式逐渐由家庭养老转向社会养老,养老保障问题日益突出。为了有效促进我国养老模式选择的合理化运作,本文将就我国的养老形式进行进一步的探究,分析比较不同国家、地区独具特色的养老模式选择,并对我国现今所面临的养老保障不足及人口红利等问题提出相关政策建议。