Optimal Rules for Defined Contribution Plans : What Can We Learn from the U.S. and Australian Pension Systems?

Both the United States and Australia have multi-pillar retirement systems that include a public component and a private component. Increasingly, the private component consists of a defined contribution plan. At the outset, this paper provides an overview of the retirement systems of the U.S. and Australia. Next, this paper compares the rules governing defined contribution plans in the U.S. and Australia. In particular, this paper focuses on the rules governing the contribution, accumulation, and distribution stages; and it discusses which public policies will best help workers maximize their defined contribution plan accumulations and, consequently, the retirement income that they will eventually receive. Ultimately, this paper develops recommendations for the optimal rules for defined contribution plans in the U.S., Australia, and around the world