This book explores how rising pension and healthcare costs, along with workforce aging, are affecting pension and retirement planning around the world. Many middle-aged workers now realize that they will have to work longer than intended, as they begin to recognize that their retirement...

Retirement risk management must be dramatically overhauled if workers and retirees are to better prepare themselves to meet future retirement challenges. Recent economic events including the global financial crisis have upended expectations about what pension and endowment fund managers can do....

As financial markets grow ever more complex and integrated, households must make increasingly sophisticated and all-too-often irreversible economic decisions. This is particularly evident in retirement decision-making. Traditional defined benefit pension schemes are being replaced with defined...

The ability of consumers to make informed financial decisions improves their chances of having sound personal finance. This paper uses a panel dataset from Russia, where consumer loans grew at an astounding rate -- from about US$10 billion in 2003 to over US$170 billion in 2008 -- to examine the...