Working-age individuals and their families have experienced increases in relative income poverty before the Great Recession (GR), and they have also seen significant income losses since the beginning of the downturn in 2007/8. This paper examines the effects of benefit and tax reforms on the...

The pensionable age is the most visible parameter of retirement-income systems. This paper surveys pensionable ages in the OECD for a period of a century: back to 1950 and forward to 2050. Average pensionable age in OECD countries dropped by nearly two years during the second half of the 20th...

This paper compares notional defined-contribution pension schemes (also known as notional accounts) with two alternative designs of earnings-related pension schemes: points systems and definedbenefit plans. It examines, in detail, four economic advantages of notional accounts that deliver...

Macro-level changes can have substantial effects on the distribution of resources at the household level. While it is possible to speculate about which groups are likely to be hardest-hit, detailed distributional studies are still largely backward-looking. This paper suggests a straight forward...

We use a range of data sources to assess if, and to what extent, government redistribution policies have slowed or accelerated the trend towards greater income disparities in the past 20-25 years. In most countries, inequality among “non-elderly” households has widened during most phases of...

Means-tested Social Assistance (SA) benefits play an important role as social protection floors sup-porting households in financial difficulties. This paper presents evidence on the patterns of SA benefit re-ceipt in a selection of OECD and EU countries. It provides an overview of the role of SA...

The current financial and economic crisis has highlighted the importance of investment risk for pension systems. In particular, the dramatic spread of defined-contribution pension provision around the world means that investment risk has a direct effect on living standards in old age. This paper...

This paper presents an evaluation of the tax-transfer treatment of married couples in 15 EU countries using the EUROMOD microsimulation model. First, we show that many tax-transfer schemes in Europe feature negative jointness defined as a situation where the tax rate on one person depends...

Two-thirds of pension reforms in OECD countries in the last 15 years contain measures that will automatically link future pensions to changes in life expectancy. This quiet revolution in pension policy means that the financial costs of longer lives will be shared between generations subject to a...

1. Reforming pensions looms large over the policy agenda of OECD countries. This is hardly surprising since public spending on pensions accounted on average for 7 per cent of OECD GDP in 2005; and this pension spending effort is set to increase significantly over the coming decades in response to...