Over 100 academics, policymakers and industry practitioners participated in the 31st Colloquium on Pensions and Retirement Research, which was held in person at UNSW Sydney from 5-6 December 2023, to discuss the latest research on pensions, superannuation and retirement. On 7 December, the Colloquium hosted an online session, sponsored by the International Pension Research Association (IPRA), with over 170 delegates from around the world registering for the event, and 15 speakers from nine countries across four continents presenting latest retirement research.
Co-hosted by CEPAR and the School of Risk & Actuarial Studies in the UNSW Business School, and convened by CEPAR Deputy Director Professor Hazel Bateman, the in-person Colloquium program comprised over 30 high-level talks and presentations.
Especially topical was an industry and policy panel session focused on effective retirement income strategies. The session was chaired by Professor Hazel Bateman and high-profile panellists included Jeremy Cooper (Chair of Advisory Board, Conexus Institute); Jacki Ellis (Head of Retirement Segment, Aware Super); Lynn Kelly (First Assistant Secretary, Retirement, Advice and Investment Division, The Treasury); and Brnic Van Wyk (Head of Asset Liability Management, Australian Retirement Trust).
Further Colloquium sessions covered the latest research on aged care financing; climate risk; life cycle decisions; pension systems and demographics; superannuation, retirement decisions and member behaviour; reverse mortgages; retirement adequacy and annuities.
The Best Student Presentation Award was awarded to Gayani Thalagoda for her presentation on 'Shapley Decomposition-Based Selection of Representative Contracts for Variable Annuity Valuation'. The paper presents a Shapley decomposition-based method to improve explainability in the selection of cluster representatives for valuing variable annuity portfolios. Gayani Thalagoda is a CEPAR PhD candidate at UNSW Sydney. Her research interests fall within the interdisciplinary areas of actuarial science and data science.
Video recordings of the online session can be viewed below, and presentation slides are available to download.
Image: Gayani Thalagoda received the Best Student Presentation Award at the 31st Colloquium
Recordings of the IPRA Online Session:
Session 1: Retirement Benefits