Case Studies in Retirement System Reform

Case Studies in Retirement System Reform. World Economic Forum. May 26, 2017.

The challenges of providing ageing societies with a financially secure retirement are well known. In most countries, standards of living and healthcare advancements are allowing people to live longer. While this should be celebrated, the implications for the financial systems designed to meet retirement needs, which are already under severe strain in many nations, must be considered.
Besides increasing life expectancies and lower birth rates, additional factors are increasing the strain on global retirement systems such as lack of easy access to pensions, inadequate savings rates, long-term low growth environment and low levels of financial literacy.

This handbook presents 12 case studies on the approaches that governments, pension funds and companies have taken to address the challenges that their own retirement systems face. It highlights initiatives undertaken and lessons learned to guide those seeking future pension reforms. The handbook accompanies the white paper We’ll Live to 100 – How Can We Afford It? [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 60 pages, 3.36 MB].

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): In Brief

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): In Brief. Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. Ian F. Fergusson et al. February 9, 2016.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a proposed free trade agreement (FTA) among 12 Asia-Pacific countries, with both economic and strategic significance for the United States. If approved, it would be the largest FTA in which the United States participates. The 12 countries announced the conclusion of the TPP negotiations and released the text of the agreement in late 2015, after several years of ongoing talks. Trade ministers from the TPP countries signed the final agreement on February 4, 2016, but Congress would need to pass implementing legislation for the agreement to enter into force for the United States. Such legislation would be eligible to receive expedited legislative consideration under the recent grant of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), P.L. 114-26, if Congress determines the Administration has advanced the TPA negotiating objectives, and met various notification and consultation requirements. TPP negotiating parties include Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam.

[PDF format, 16 pages, 721.59 KB].

Financial Advice Markets: A Cross-Country Comparison

Financial Advice Markets: A Cross-Country Comparison. RAND Corporation. Jeremy Burke and Angela A. Hung. October 8, 2015.

Because many people are ill equipped to make complex financial decisions on their own, financial advisers can provide a valuable service in helping investors make such decisions. Given that conflicts of interest may influence advisers’ behavior in ways that may be detrimental to their clients’ interests, it is informative to examine how countries around the world have used regulation to try to improve the quality of financial advice, and how the regulatory tools used have affected their respective financial advice markets. The review compares the financial advice markets in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Singapore, and the European Union, for a cross-section of countries that recently made regulatory changes aimed at improving financial advice. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 42 pages, 0.3 MB].