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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the 401(k) auto-enrollment rate influences the size of elected contribution rates in defined contribution plans for new, young enrollees.

The authors survey 324 undergraduate students at a mid-sized Midwestern university, and compare the elected contribution rates for two groups who were randomly given two default rates: 3 and 15 percent.

The results indicate widespread evidence of the anchoring and adjusting heuristic in regards to the provided auto-enrollment rate, as the 3 percent default rate group selects a contribution rate of approximately 2 percent less than the group that was provided with the 15 percent default rate. The results also provide support to the benefits of financial education: those who were taking or had already taken a college-level finance course provide higher contribution rates by about 1.7 percent overall. Additionally, individuals with the lowest critical thinking skills elect approximately 2 percent less in annual contributions overall than those who demonstrate higher critical thinking skills.

Interestingly, all groups seem to be susceptible to the anchoring and adjustment heuristic, as the default rate plays a significant role in the elected contribution rate, regardless of an individual’s financial sophistication or critical thinking skill level. The authors hope that these findings prompt benefit plan administrators and policy-makers to reconsider default rates in their retirement plans that would allow for maximum savings and participation rates. The findings also speak in favor of developing programs that would assist enrollees with financial education and critical thinking skills that would yield better retirement savings decisions when asked to make their employee benefit selections.

Although tax relief on pensions is a controversial area of government expenditure, this is the first study of the tax effects for a real-world defined benefit pension scheme. First, we estimate the tax and national insurance contribution (NIC) effects of the scheme's change from final salary to career average revalued earnings (CARE) in 2011 on the gross and net wealth of the sponsor, government, and 16 age cohorts of members, deferred pensioners, and pensioners. Second, we measure the size of the twelve income tax and NIC payments and reliefs for new members and the sponsor, before and after the rule changes. We find the total subsidy split is roughly 40% income tax subsidy and 60% NIC subsidy. If lower tax rates in retirement and the risk premium effect of the exempt-exempt-taxed (EET) system are not viewed as a tax subsidy, the tax subsidy to members largely disappears. Any remaining subsidy drops, as a proportion of pension benefits, for high earners, as does that for NICs.

ARRANGEMENT OF REGULATIONS

This paper aims to analytically show that in an over-lapping-generation (OLG) model, low earning cohorts bear unwanted risk and absorb higher economic cost than high earning cohorts do.

This paper aims to consider the individual's risk appetite, using a simple utility function, based on consumptions and discount rates in each period. This paper calibrates the model according to teh Israeli pension system as a representative of a small open developed organization for economic cooperation and development country. Israel is considered as unique case study in the pension landscape, as it implements almost pure defined contribution pension scheme with continuous trend of pension market capitalization (Giorno and Jacques, 2016). Hence, this study finds Israel suitable for examining the theoretical mix of pension scheme. That model enables exploring combined solutions for adequate old age benefits, involving the first and the second pension pillars, under fiscal constraints.

It comes out that for risk-averse individuals, the optimal degree of funding is negatively correlated to asset returns' volatility and positively correlated to earning decile level. The neglect of risk and individual's current earning level will thus overstate the contribution level and funded percentage from total contributions. Moreover, even in an economy with minimum government intervention, and highly developed private pension fund with high average of rate of return, the authors find it is optimal that the pension system contains a sizeable unfunded pillar. This paper innovates by revealing a socio-economic anomaly in design of mix pension systems in favor of high earning cohorts on the expense of economic loss of low earning cohorts.

The model presented in this paper could be implemented in countries with mix pension systems, as an alternative to public social transfers or means tested, alleviating poverty and inequality in old age. Additionally, this model could raise the public awareness of the financial sustainability of the unfunded pay-as-you-go pillar to diversify financial risk in pension systems, especially for low earning cohort in society.

One area of research that is particularly relevant in this context concerns the issue of alleviating poverty and income inequality. It is often stressed that the prevention of old age poverty is among the central targets of well-designed pension system (Holzmann and Hinz, 2005). The conceptualization of minimum pension guarantee used in this composition allows to clearly capturing the notion of such a poverty and social targets as an integral part of the pension system rolls.

This paper innovates by revealing a socio-economic anomaly in design of mix pension systems in favor of high earning cohorts on the expense of economic loss of low earning cohorts. That comes to realize through the level of total contribution rates and funded share that are generally optimal for high earning cohorts but not for low earning cohorts. This paper identifies that the effect of anomaly is most significant in a market characterized with high income-inequality level. This paper finds that imposing intra-generational risk sharing instrument in the form of minimum pension guarantee can re-balance pension design among different earning cohorts. This solution demonstrates balancing effect on the entire economy.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the significance of the sources of cost of construction plant theft identified in previous studies and derive rates which can enhance proper estimation of the cost of plant theft to the construction industry. The direct and indirect costs of plant theft include replacement cost (new‐for‐old/depreciated), emergency cost, hire replacement cost, productivity loss, increased labour cost, loss of goodwill, administration cost, increased insurance premium and social cost.

The cost‐contribution of these various sources was studied, using a structured questionnaire which was administered to building contractors in the UK construction industry, to measure their opinions of the frequency and severity of the contribution of the sources to the cost of construction plant theft. The questionnaires were administered to 220 companies and 51 of them were fully completed, representing 23.1 per cent of the original sample. The responses were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics to derive the probabilities of sources contributing to the cost of plant theft.

The results of the analysis show that the rates of contribution to the cost of plant theft varies significantly between the sources, with “loss of output” and “increased insurance premium” ranking as the top‐two costs of plant theft in the UK construction industry. The rates derived in this study can be used by contractors to reasonably estimate the cost of plant theft, especially when there is need to justify the adoption of measures that can mitigate plant theft.

This study generated rates of contribution by factors which contribute to the overall cost of theft of construction plant in the UK. These rates can provide a more reliable estimate of the cost of plant theft than current estimations which vary significantly.

This paper aims to reflect the quality of Chinese economic growth and analyze its influential factors through measuring the change rate of technological progress and its contribution rate to economic growth between 1978 and 2008.

In this paper, an all factor productivity (AFP) method is taken. AFP is essentially a weighted sum of all input factors' productivity. Besides, general hypotheses for production function, such assumptions are not required as neutral technological progress, constant returns to scale and producer equilibrium in method of AFP. Furthermore, specific forms of production function are not needed and can be calculated directly. This method tries to relax the assumptions to make the estimated rate of technological progress closer to the reality in China.

Empirical research using the AFP method shows a contribution rate of AFP to economic growth has been significantly improved since reform and opening‐up; however, that AFP fluctuates during different periods. China's economic growth is driven by investment and mainly depends on accumulation of capital input and moderate technological progress. Generally speaking, China's change of technological progress is consistent with its economic growth and technological progress plays an important role in its economic growth. The paper concludes that it is becoming significant for China to speed up its large‐scale technological progress, strengthen indigenous innovation, accelerate human resource development, and to facilitate promotion of system reform in an in‐depth manner.

First, in order to ensure the accuracy measurement, and taking into account the impact of macro‐economic control policies, the rate of change of technological progress and its contribution to economic growth are measured, according to the stages of China's economic cycles. Second, the perpetual inventory method is taken to calculate the annual value of fixed asset investment, and price deflated index is used to convert fixed asset investment into comparable data of the base year, 1978. Since the data of fixed assets price index began to be released from 1992, data from 1978 to 1991 are obtained by mathematical method through extension. Third, the theoretical model of AFP is transformed into an empirical one to estimate the change rate of technological progress and its contribution to economic growth in China.

Objective – Measurement of the incidence of health financing contributions across socio-economic groups has proven valuable in informing health care financing reforms. However, there is little evidence as to how to carry out financing incidence analysis (FIA) in lower income settings. We outline some of the challenges faced when carrying out a FIA in Ghana, Tanzania and South Africa and illustrate how innovative techniques were used to overcome data weaknesses in these settings.

Methodology – FIA was carried out for tax, insurance and out-of-pocket (OOP) payments. The primary data sources were Living Standards Measurement Surveys (LSMS) and household surveys conducted in each of the countries; tax authorities and insurance funds also provided information. Consumption expenditure and a composite index of socio-economic status (SES) were used to assess financing equity. Where possible conventional methods of FIA were applied. Numerous challenges were documented and solution strategies devised.

Results – LSMS are likely to underestimate financial contributions to health care by individuals. For tax incidence analysis, reported income tax payments from secondary sources were severely under-reported. Income tax payers and shareholders could not be reliably identified. The use of income or consumption expenditure to estimate income tax contributions was found to be a more reliable method of estimating income tax incidence. Assumptions regarding corporate tax incidence had a huge effect on the progressivity of corporate tax and on overall tax progressivity. LSMS consumption categories did not always coincide with tax categories for goods subject to excise tax (e.g. wine and spirits were combined, despite differing tax rates). Tobacco companies, alcohol distributors and advertising agencies were used to provide more detailed information on consumption patterns for goods subject to excise tax by income category. There was little guidance on how to allocate fuel levies associated with ‘public transport’ use. Hence, calculations of fuel tax on public transport were based on individual expenditure on public transport, the average cost per kilometre and average rates of fuel consumption for each form of transport. For insurance contributions, employees will not report on employer contributions unless specifically requested to and are frequently unsure of their contributions. Therefore, we collected information on total health insurance contributions from individual schemes and regulatory authorities. OOP payments are likely to be under-reported due to long recall periods; linking OOP expenditure and illness incidence questions – omitting preventive care; and focusing on the last service used when people may have used multiple services during an illness episode. To derive more robust estimates of financing incidence, we collected additional primary data on OOP expenditures together with insurance enrolment rates and associated payments. To link primary data to the LSMS, a composite index of SES was used in Ghana and Tanzania and non-durable expenditure was used in South Africa.

Policy implications – We show how data constraints can be overcome for FIA in lower income countries and provide recommendations for future studies.

This paper considers the effects on current pensioner incomes of reforms designed to improve the long-term sustainability of public pension systems in the European Union. We use EUROMOD to simulate a set of common illustrative reforms for four countries selected on the basis of their diverse pension systems and patterns of poverty among the elderly: Denmark, Germany, Italy and the UK. The variations in fiscal and distributive effects on the one hand suggest that different paths for reform are necessary in order to achieve common objectives across countries, and on the other provide indications of the appropriate directions for reform in each case.