The paper identifies the sustainable rate of return (to be credited on all account balances) for a generic Defined-Contribution pension scheme regardless of its degree of funding.

Starting from a reconstruction of the political context in which the Italian 1995 pension reform took shape, this paper reviews the essential features of the 1995 and post-1995 legislation and assesses its fundamental shortcomings. A straightforward theoretical discussion highlights both the...

The paper suggests that casting the choice problem in terms of alternative time-consuming activities can foster the fruitful cross-fertilization between economics and psychology along the lines suggested by Scitovsky in the Joyless Economy. The first part emphasizes how mainstream, utility-based...