Reinventing the Retirement Paradigm

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 into their social, economic, legal, actuarial, and financial foundations of privately and publicly-provided benefits. Contributors to this volume - 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 Sunden, 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