Pensions and retirement research around the world

Over 170 delegates from 52 countries came together online on December 1, 2022, to hear about global trends in pensions and retirement research. Video recordings are available online.

The online session was part of the 30th Colloquium of Pensions and Retirement Research and sponsored by the International Pension Research Association (IPRA) – a new international organisation established with the aim of improving the quality and impact of research on pensions and related ageing issues to optimise social and economic outcomes for an ageing world. CEPAR Deputy Director Professor Hazel Bateman is the inaugural IPRA President and epresentatives of CEPAR, the International Organisation of Pension Supervisors (IOPS), Netspar at Tilburg University, the Pension Research Council at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, WTW, and the OECD are members of the IPRA Executive Committee.

The first session focused on pension decisions and was chaired by CEPAR Director Scientia Professor John Piggott. Presenters included:

• Jim Been (Leiden University, Netspar, The Netherlands) on Households’ Heterogeneous Welfare Effects of Using Home Equity for Life Cycle Consumption
• Abigail Hurwitz (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel) on Private Information and Risk Preferences in the Annuity Market: Evidence from Sweden
• Markus Schmid (University of St. Gallen, Switzerland) on Financial Advice and Retirement Savings

The second session, on retirement and adequacy, was chaired by Bas Werker, Professor of Finance and Econometry at Tilburg University, Netspar. Speakers included: 

• Chiara Ardito (Torino University & Epidemiology Unit, Italy) on Health and Labour Market Effects of an Abrupt and Unanticipated Rise in Women Retirement Age. Evidence from the 2012 Italian Pension Reform
• Xuan Zhang (Singapore Management University, Singapore) on Labour Supply and Well-Being Among Older Adults: The Separate Effects of Pension Access and Statutory Retirement Age
• Phitawat Poonpolkul (Puey Ungphakorn Institute for Economic Research - PIER, Thailand) on Ageing, Inadequacy and Fiscal Constraint: The Case of Thailand
• Farid Flici (Research Center in Applied Economics for Development - CREAD, Algeria) on The Limits of Parametric Reforms in Sustaining the Algerian Retirement System in front of Population Ageing

The third session focused on pension finance and choice architecture and was chaired by Associate Professor Katja Hanewald who is a CEPAR Associate Investigator and Director of Research of the Ageing Asia Research Hub at UNSW Sydney. Presenters included:

• Damiaan Chen (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands) on Intergenerational Sharing of Unhedgeable Inflation Risk
• Maximilian Konradt (Geneva Graduate Institute, Switzerland) on Do Pension Funds Reach for Yield? Evidence from a New Database
• Paulina Granados (Superintendencia de Pensiones, Chile) and Denise Laroze (Universidad de Santiago de Chile) on Choice Architecture Improves Pension Selection

Professor Hazel Bateman chaired the final session, focused on old age security. Speakers included: 

• Natee Amornsiripanitch (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, USA) on The Age Gap in Mortgage Access
• Jason Seligman (Investment Company Institute, USA) on Do People Successfully Manage Their Nest Eggs Through Retirement? Evidence from the Evolution of US Household Balance Sheets
• Jordan Moore (Rowan University, USA) on Experiments on Targeted Wealth Management Strategies for Prospect Theory Investors

Professor Bateman also delivered the closing remarks and said that IPRA has a range of membership options available for individuals and organisations, which are available on the IPRA website at iprassn.org.

Find the full list of speakers and agenda here.

Video recordings of the presentations are available below (where speakers provided their consent to be recorded).