Personalized Information as a Tool to Improve Pension Savings: Results from a Randomized Control Trial in Chile

Since the early twentieth century, Poland has had a Bismarckian pension system characterized by pension contributions, pension funds and equivalent pension provisions. After World War II, this system was modified by the introduction of many redistributive mechanisms. After the political and economic transformation in 1989, the need for pension reform arose, and 10 years later systemic pension reform was conducted. The most important changes included the new pension DC formula, the introduction of funding in the public pension system (open pension funds) and the implementation of occupational pension schemes. However, wide coverage (inclusion of most working careers) and a minimum pension remained unchanged and contributed to the mitigation of old-age poverty. The reform was aimed at financial sustainability, especially at the cost of the pension level. In the following years, the system has been modified by the reduction of funding in the public pension tier and the development of voluntary or quasi-voluntary pension savings. However, the pension system in Poland, where the population is aging rapidly, has to face some important challenges, such as a decrease in replacement rates from the public pension system, expansion of future poverty among older (female) beneficiaries and insufficient additional nonpublic pension savings.

The main problems of the improvement of the efficiency of public pension system management in Ukraine are analyzed by the authors in this paper. The necessity of application of the comprehensive approach to these processes is substantiated due to the results of scientific investigations. The authors analyze the impact of wage shadowing on the budget of the Pension Fund of Ukraine. Conditional wages calculation is carried out. According to this calculation the state actually has revenues about a third of the amount of funds paid to the employee in the form of wages taking into account all deductions, taxes and charges However, the investigation also shows that for VAT companies there is indirect tax burden on sole proprietorships, which in some cases increases the «tax» almost by half. Special attention is paid to the problem of labor migration from Ukraine to EU. The investigation indicates that Ukraine is introducing changes to reform the social insurance system, using the long-term experience of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the Baltic States. In addition, such reforms have previously been carried out in Chile, Kazakhstan and other countries. The need to introduce the state accumulative pension component in Ukraine, to which contributions should be paid in the form of payroll deductions is also pointed out, as the EU experience shows that this fact stimulates workers and makes them more responsible for their pension savings. Within the framework of comprehensive approach, it is proposed to apply the marketing approach to the pension system management. The importance of the implementation of the Association Agreement with the European Union in terms of cooperation in the field of employment, social policy and equal opportunities, as well as the impact on the functioning of pension system for certain terms of national legislation is indicated. On the basis of analysis carried out in theoretical and practical terms, the need to develop not only three-level pension system, but also to take into account the recommendations of the World Bank concerning five-level system formation is substantiated. The government should achieve the new quality in public administration, both by the processes of pension reform and in relation to the socio-economic development of the country in general actively adapting the EU experience in the application of comprehensive approach tools.

The aim of the authors is to provide a critical statistical-analytical view of the current pension system of the Slovak Republic with special regard to old -age pension savings in its fifteen-year existence, resulting in proposals for adjustments to its operation. It includes an analysis of the sustainability of pension systems, an analysis of the age distribution of savers as well as possible investment strategies of savers and the distribution of their property savings in pension funds. We model the investment strategy of a participant in old-age pension savings. We draw attention to the evaluation of old -age pension savings in pension funds during its existence and quantify the potential loss caused by an inappropriate investment strategy of savers. The an alysis showed that the Slovak participant in old-age pension savings invests mainly in conservative pension assets, which bring low volatility in the short term, which may not be optimal in the long run. In order to achieve change, we also outline the possibilities of changing the attitudes of savers to value their savings and propose reform steps that would contribute to ensuring a balance between the financial and social sustainability of the pension system.

Introduction. The development of the non-state pension provision system is crucial for enhancing the financial stability of citizens in old age, reducing the burden on the state pension fund, and ensuring a more dignified standard of living for retirees. This contributes to the diversification of income sources and fosters greater individual responsibility for future pensions. The study is aimed at developing a conceptual model for a pension planning application that facilitates the creation of personalized retirement strategies. The model incorporates continuous monitoring of legislative, economic, and other changes to provide citizens with an additional tool for independently building longterm savings. Materials and methods. The study used the following materials: legislative and regulatory frameworks governing the operations of non-state pension funds (NPFs) and fintech development; scientific publications and articles in the fields of financial technology, pension provision, and information systems. The methods used in the study included analysis of legal and regulatory frameworks; case studies of fintech application development and implementation in NPFs. Results. The AKPIN fintech application enables the formation of personalized strategies for pension savings and supports the long-term development of the funded component of Russia’s pension system. The proposed application can analyze user data and provide tailored recommendations for increasing savings. If a user decides to withdraw funds, the application can also generate advice upon request. By continuously monitoring news, financial regulators’ actions, economic indicators, and legislative changes, the application offers up-to-date recommendations, assisting users in making informed individual decisions regarding the management of their pension savings. Conclusion. Fintech applications can make pension services more accessible to a broader audience by offering a user-friendly interface for managing retirement savings.

The article studies the subject of improving the non-state pension provision mechanism considering the fintech application implementation into the system. The purpose of the study is to develop an application conceptual model in the framework of pension planning and individual pension strategies formation considering constant monitoring of changes in the legislative, economic, and other spheres to ­create an additional way for citizens to independently form long-term savings for developing the third level of the pension system. Information synthesis and analysis, available literature review, comparison, the results obtained formalization and specification have been carried out. The paper presents problems and analysis of existing programs to motivate long-term savings and proposals in the field of pension savings formation for developing the third level of pension provision. AKPIN fintech-application will allow to develop individual strategies for pension savings formation and will be aimed at a long-term strategy implementation for developing the accumulative component of the pension system in Russia. The proposed application has the ability to analyze the user’s data and, based on it, offer recommendations to increase their savings. If the user decides to spend funds, it can also issue recommendations on request. Due to continuous monitoring of the news background, financial regulators’ actions, financial indicators and changes in legislation, the application can offer up-to-date recommendations and assist users in making effective individual decisions in the area of pension savings management for citizens of the Russian Federation.

Understanding the life-cycle interactions between investments in human capital, retirement choices and pension savings is highly policy-relevant. Most Western governments will be confronted with the consequences of demographic ageing in the upcoming decennia. Tax bases will shrink, due to the retirement of older generations of workers. Outlays on state pensions and healthcare will rise substantially. Pension systems with strong intergenerational risk sharing face difficulties as well, since it will become more difficult and costly to smooth pension risks over different generations by means of contribution adjustments. At the same time, individuals do not invest in skills, because they expect to retire early. And, individuals retire early because they have not invested in skills. As a result, many European countries are confronted with a vicious circle of low investments in on-the-job training of older workers and strong incentives to retire early.

We examine the heterogeneous and dynamic impact of China's New Rural Pension Scheme on intergenerational wealth dependence using a nationally representative longitudinal household survey covering the period 2011-13.We adopt an instrumental quantile regressiondiscontinuity design to address the endogeneity of partial compliance of the pension scheme and the observed individual heterogeneity.Overall, we find that the pension scheme smooths wealth dependence between generations in the short term, but strengthens the persistence of assets among the wealthiest households in the medium term.The mechanisms underlying these distributional effects are intergenerational transfers, time reallocation, and filial adjustments of the wealth portfolio.Complementary policy interventions, particularly for the poor across generations, would be needed to neutralize the distributional impact of the pension in terms of intergenerational wealth persistence.

One of the key issues of optimal fiscal policy is a choice of public goods financing program. Financial repression is commonly used by governments as an implicit taxation of financial sector along with explicit labor and capital taxes. In this paper we consider the optimal choice of benevolent government in an overlapping generations' model with an endogenous labor supply and defined contribution pension system. Financial repression is modeled as an artificial increase in demand on government bonds of the pension fund with the reduced rate of return. The optimal choice depends on the population growth: when the growth is negative the government does not resort to the financial repression, and public good is financed by the labor tax revenues. When the population growth is positive optimal choice of the government includes financial repression coupled with capital tax. In this case the interest rate on the government debt is -1. Stronger financial repression leads to the decrease in pension savings, substituted by voluntary savings, which leads to higher capital and output per unit of labor.

The Danish pension system is well-developed and almost unique in the OECD. It combines widespread take up of defined contribution pension schemes with high contribution rates set in collective agreements. The original targets for contribution rates have been reached and the system delivers good results, but there are a number of changes that could make it more robust and efficient. The flexibility of the institutional structure could be increased and, while leaving the key parameters of the pension taxation system as they are, other aspects of capital taxation could be improved.

This paper explores how uncertainty over investment returns affects pension systems. This issue is becoming more important because of the dramatic spread of defined-contribution pension provision around the world. It has also been highlighted by the recent financial crisis: the OECD estimates that pension funds lost 23% of their value in 2008, worth a heady USD 5.4 trillion. The scale of investment risk is measured in this paper using historical data on returns on equities and bonds in major OECD economies over the past quarter century. The results show a median real return of 7.3% a year on a portfolio equally weighted between equities and bonds (averaging across the countries studied). It might be expected that, over a very long period, the degree of uncertainty in investment returns is small. After all, a few bad years in the market are likely to be offset by boom years. Nevertheless, the degree of uncertainty, even with the relatively long investment horizons of pensions, is found to be large. In 10% of cases, an annual return of less than 5.5% would be expected, while in 10% of cases, this should exceed 9.0%. Compounded over the time horizon for pension savings of 40 years or more, such differences in rates of return amount to enormous sums of money. However, there is a series of reasons why returns achieved by individuals on their pension funds are less than the market return (as measured by conventional indices). These factors include administrative charges, agency and governance effects and demographic change, depressing investment returns below the high levels recorded over the past two decades. As a result, a more conservative assumption for future investment returns than the record over the past quarter century is appropriate. Settling on a median of 5.0% annual real return net of charges implies that 80% of the time, the investment return on pension savings should be between 3.2% and 6.7% a year.

We propose a dynamic stochastic accumulation model for determining optimal decision between stock and bond investments during accumulation of pension savings. Stock prices are assumed to be driven by the geometric Brownian motion. Interest rates are modeled by means of the Cox-Ingersoll-Ross model. The optimal decision as a solution to the corresponding dynamic stochastic program is a function of the duration of saving, the level of savings and the short rate. Qualitative and quantitative properties of the optimal solution are analyzed. The model is tested on the funded pillar of the Slovak pension system. The results are calculated for various risk preferences of a saver.

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The article substantiates the need to reform the pension system of the Russian Federation. According to the author, the most effective way to reduce the financial burden on the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation is to reform the institution of early (preferential) pensions, because the scale of providing preferential pensions in Russia is unparalleled in world practice. The article examines the history of concessional pension provision in Russia and the stages of reforming the pension system in sufficient detail. The author examines the measures that were planned in the 1995 Concept of Reform for the introduction of a three-tiered pension system, which would have included as one of its components a non-state (supplementary) pension in the form of professional pension systems of individual organizations, industries, territories, as well as personal pension savings in non-state pension funds or insurance companies. Then the article examines the Programme of pension reform of 1998, draft federal laws "On the Fundamentals of Pension Reform in the Russian Federation", "On compulsory professional pension systems in the Russian Federation", in which quite reasonable measures to change the institution of early pensions were proposed. The author notes with regret that the above draft laws did not receive further consideration and were withdrawn from consideration because the main issue concerning the financing of occupational pensions remained unresolved. The article discusses the main directions of the Strategy for Long-Term Development of the Pension System (until 2030), one of which is also reforming the institute of early pensions. Summarizing the results of the study, the author draws a disappointing conclusion that over the past 30 years the idea of introducing occupational pensions has not yet found real implementation, and the existing institution of concessional pensions now covers an even wider range of persons than it did in the Soviet period. The author fears that the introduction of an occupational pension system may not materialise in the next few years, given the current economic crisis, labour market problems and a difficult demographic situation. Nevertheless, the author hopes that the next phase of pension reform announced by the Russian Government will lead to real progress in introducing the occupational pension system in Russia as well. There is no doubt that the need to resolve this problem is long overdue, and effective measures should be taken as soon as possible. All the more so because the regulations already adopted over the years, which were discussed in this study, provide quite adequate and feasible measures for reforming the Russian pension system. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

ABSTRACTBackground and Aim:Double-lumen tube (DLT) insertion, which is often necessary to isolate the lung in thoracic surgeries, causes a significant and prolonged stress response. This study aims to evaluate the effect of a single preinduction bolus of dexmedetomidine 0.5 mcg/kg on hemodynamic responses to DLT insertion and fiberoptic confirmation.Materials and Methods:In this prospective randomized control trial, 60 patients coming for thoracic surgery requiring DLT insertion were recruited. Thirty were assigned to the dexmedetomidine group (A) and 30 to the placebo group (B). Group A received 0.5 mcg/kg dexmedetomidine, and Group B received normal saline over 10 min. Heart rate (HR), systolic blood pressure (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were recorded at baseline, after study drug administration, just before intubation, at intubation, and thereafter at regular intervals up to 30 min. Usage of supplementary anesthetics and rescue medications was noted.Results:Patients in Group A had lower HR after study drug administration (P < 0.001), before intubation (P < 0.001), at intubation (P < 0.001), and at various other time points. Group A had lower SBP (P = 0.049) and DBP (P = 0.005) after study drug administration. Fewer patients in Group A required additional propofol (14 vs. 27) (P < 0.001) and lesser doses (21.3 vs. 41.0 mg) (P = 0.008). Lesser Group A patients required additional fentanyl (15 vs. 21) (P = 0.114). More patients in Group A required ephedrine (P = 0.038). Use of phenylephrine and atropine was comparable in both groups.Conclusion:Dexmedetomidine worked as an excellent adjuvant to anesthesia, providing good HR control and hemodynamic stability during DLT insertion and fiberoptic bronchoscopy confirmation. It decreases the overall anesthetic requirements and causes minimal side effects.

In the Russian Federation pension system is undergoing some serious changes: freeze the pension in 2013, raising the retirement age in 2018, guarantee an annual indexing of pensions in the draft amendments to the Constitution in 2020, merger of the Pension Fund of Russia and the Social Insurance Fund into the Social Fund of Russia in January 2023 — all these changes influence on the pension system, pension funds and their perception by citizens. Since the state pension still does not provide a replacement rate of 40%, and for Russians who receive twice the average income, in 2018 the replacement rate was 22%, and by 2050 it will reach only 31% — it would be logical to assume an increase in the popularity of non-state pension products, which has not yet occurred. To analyze the reasons for this situation, a number of hypotheses were analyzed and a conclusion was made to confirm the theses about the dependence of the level of readiness of citizens to pension savings on such factors as income level, future orientation, financial literacy, a weak level of confidence in the pension system, dissatisfaction of some potential clients of non-government pension funds (hereinafter — NPF) with their current portfolio of products and conditions for them, as well as the availability of alternative sources of pension income.