Is Life Annuity an Effective Tool for Managing Longevity Risk in Korea?*

We examine optimal life annuity planning for Korean pre‐retirees with a focus on the optimal timing of annuitization. The objective is to maximize the expected total utility from consumption during the retirement period. Benchmark cases with various values for net wealth, proportion of net wealth that is annuitized at the time of retirement and level of risk aversion are applied. We confirm that life annuity is an effective tool for managing longevity risk in Korea and it is important to select the timing of annuitization carefully to maximize the expected total utility and to avoid unnecessary financial ruin during retirement. In addition, we find that the optimal annuity strategy is more beneficial for those with lower levels of wealth than others.     

Gradual Retirement: Preferences and Limitations

In the traditional retirement scenario, individuals work full-time or part-time until a given age, and then stop working abruptly. From the individual’s point of view, it seems more attractive to have a smooth transition, with gradual retirement. In Sweden and other European countries, specific gradual retirement programs have been created in the past 20 years, first in combination with early retirement programs and later to increase labour market participation of older workers. This paper surveys the existing literature on gradual retirement in the US and Europe and analyzes the relevance of gradual retirement in the Netherlands as a tool to keep people employed longer.      

中国妇女退休年龄的法经济学分析

从退休前后相对收入变化的角度来看,我国养老保险制度中有关男女职工不同退休年龄的规定就总体来说是对女性不利的。除部分低收入者外,大部分女职工的养老金相对水平会因早退休而下降。退休年龄的差异使得男女职工退休前的收入差距在退休后进一步扩大,并且也造成人力资本的巨大浪费。为了改变这种不合理现象,需要重新审视我国的退休政策,提高女性退休年龄,把男女同龄退休纳入退休和养老保险制度改革的综舍考虑之中;推行弹性退休制度具有实现老年人力资源的开发利用、有助于养老保险的基金平衡等优势。     

城镇企业职工养老保险基金支付能力测算模型的构建——基于“渐进式”延迟退休年龄策略的研究

应用社会保险精算方法和技术,以现行的社会养老保险政策为导向,重点考虑\"渐进式\"延迟退休因素,构建养老保险基金收支测算模型。并在此基础上推导出养老保险基金支付能力测算模型,以期对养老金失衡风险和支付能力危机进行及时预测,为养老保险政策的调整和完善提供依据。     

Technological adaptation, trade, and growth

Technological Adaptation, Trade, and Growth. — Based on Grossman and Helpman’s 1991 seminal work, the authors provide a simple model extension where innovations created in the high-tech sector may be assimilated or adapted by the lowtech sector, thus generating nondecreasing returns in the production function of the latter. When applying a Heckscher-Ohlin framework the authors find that the effects of technological diffusion allow a country relatively scarce in human capital to benefit from nondecreasing rates of growth through its low-tech sector. They test this idea by using a dynamic panel data approach in order to deal with simultaneity and country heterogeneity. Their results are consistent with the predictions of the model and robust to a broad range of definitions of technological intensity.     

REVISITING SOUTH AFRICAN EMPLOYMENT TRENDS IN THE 1990S

This article revisits South African employment trends recorded since 1995. In particular, it investigates whether the job losses and gains recorded by the October Household Survey jobs in the mid-1990s reflect the reality. This is done by comparing the different official data sets, and by exploring alternative sources of information for three sectors that substantially influenced this trend, namely formal agriculture, mining, and community, social and personal services. Potential inconsistencies within the October Household data are assessed, particularly in relation to the distribution of employees across formal and informal sectors and the categorisation of unpaid family workers. The implications of possible changes to the employment trend from 1995-2006 are considered. This article finds that the evidence is strong enough to call into question published employment trends. According to the October Household Survey, formal employment fell by 1.4 million between 1995 and 1997. The OHS and Labour Force Survey shows that formal employment then grew by 1.9 million between 1997 and 2006. According to the revised figures presented in this paper, 73,000 to 530,000 formal jobs were lost between 1995 and 1997 and 1.4 million net new jobs were created between 1997 and 2006. It is therefore possible that the plummeting and recovery of employment in the 1990s were both considerably less dramatic than that reflected in the official statistics. Further research and investigation would be required to validate these trends.     

THE CHANGING EFFICIENCY OF AFRICAN STOCK MARKETS

This paper classifies formal African stock markets into four categories and discuses the principal characteristics of the seven markets covered in this study: South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Mauritius and Kenya. Using a GARCH approach with time‐varying parameters, a test of evolving efficiency (TEE) is implemented for periods starting in the early 1990s and ending in June 2001. This test detects changes in weak form efficiency through time. The TEE finds that the Johannesburg stock market is weak form efficient throughout the period, and three stock markets become weak form efficient towards the end of the period: Egypt and Morocco from 1999 and Nigeria from early 2001. These contrast with the Kenya and Zimbabwe stock markets which show no tendency towards weak form efficiency and the Mauritius market which displays a slow tendency to eliminate inefficiency. The paper relates weak form efficiency to stock market turnover, capitalisation and institutional characteristics of markets.     

A new anatomy of the retirement process in Japan

In Japan, retirement is a gradual process that transpires over a particularly long period of time. Using large scale micro-level datasets from the Survey of Employment of the Elderly compiled by the Japanese government, we provide some stylized facts on the development of retirement behavior since the 1980s and explore factors affecting the individual retirement decision. First, we observed a general declining trend in the proportion of retired individuals aged 55–59 (especially females) while the proportion of retired individuals aged 65–69 (especially males) increased. Second, the survival analysis on actual retirement age shows that those who are more educated are more likely to retire earlier and those who experienced mandatory retirement are less likely. Third, the survival analysis on the expected retirement age shows that individuals who are satisfied with their job in terms of nonmonetary rewards are less likely to retire earlier.     

延长退休年龄挤占就业岗位吗?——基于安徽省芜湖市的调查

随着经济发展,人们预期寿命的延长,中国人口老龄化问题也越来越突出,这在一定程度上给我国的社会保障制度带来了一系列影响。为缓解人口老龄化对于社会保障的压力,有学者提出延长退休年龄的设想。但延长退休年龄遭到了社会某些方面的质疑,主要顾虑是它会挤占当前的社会就业岗位。论文以安徽芜湖市为例,通过问卷调查方式对相关问题进行了实证检验,结果表明延长退休年龄并不会挤占社会就业,相反长期来看还会促进社会就业。     

Can Simple Informational Nudges Increase Employee Participation in a 401(k) Plan?

We report results from a field experiment in which a randomized subset of newly hired workers at a large financial institution received a flyer containing information about the employer's 401(k) plan and the value of contributions compounding over a career. Younger workers who received the flyer were significantly more likely to begin contributing to the plan relative to their peers in the control group. Many workers do not participate in their employers' supplemental retirement savings programs, even though these programs offer substantial tax advantages and immediate returns due to matching contributions. From a survey of new hires, we find that many workers choose not to contribute to the plan because they have other financial priorities. However, some nonparticipants lack the financial literacy to appreciate the benefit. These findings indicate that simple informational interventions can nudge workers to participate in retirement saving plans and enhance individual well‐being and retirement income security.     

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。     

THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF MANUFACTURING AND SERVICES TO EMPLOYMENT CREATION AND GROWTH IN SOUTH AFRICA

This study examines the linkages between the manufacturing and services sectors, and between each of them and the rest of the domestic economy, based on analysis of input-output tables and employment trends. This reveals that manufacturing is particularly important as a source of demand for the services sector as well as the rest of the economy through its strong backward linkages, which suggests that in this respect a decline in manufacturing could negatively affect future growth. Services are especially important in terms of employment creation, both direct and indirect.     

浅析应对人口老龄化的公共政策

我国养老保障制度从单位养老向社会化转制的过程中,同时遭遇了人口老龄化的冲击。转制带来的隐性债务在抚养比增大的作用下不断放大,个人账户难以实现有效积累和保值增值,任其发展必然形成严重的养老金支付危机。本文通过分析我国应对老龄化社会面临的特殊困难,结合现有代表性研究成果,提出在资本市场不完善的背景下,养老金个人账户向大型央企直接投资,转换部分国家持有股份以弥补个人账户缺口,并从鼓励居家养老的现实角度,提出"以家庭为单位"申报个人所得税的构想等建议。     

Institutions, wages, and inequality: The case of Europe and its periphery (1500–1899)

This paper explores the long-run relationship between institutions and wage outcomes in Europe and its periphery. I find that cities that exercised stronger institutional protection of private property experienced: (i) higher levels of both skilled and unskilled real wages, as well as (ii) lower levels of inequality as measured by the skilled–unskilled wage ratio. While the first result corroborates existing work on the positive growth effects of better institutions, the second finding is more novel to the literature. Some explanations are proposed for how stronger institutions can cause an increase in the relative supply of skilled workers, thus lowering wage inequality.     

The price of human capital in a pre-industrial economy: Premiums and apprenticeship contracts in 18th century England

Training through apprenticeship provided the main mechanism for occupational human capital formation in pre-industrial England. This paper demonstrates how training premiums (fees) complemented the formal legal framework surrounding apprenticeship to secure training contracts. Premiums varied in response to scarcity rents, the expected productivity of masters and apprentices, and served as compensation for the anticipated risk of default. In most trades premiums were small enough to allow access to apprenticeship training for youths from modest families.