Retirement System Risk Management - Implications of the New Regulatory Order

The global financial crisis had immediate and profound impacts on pension and insurance company assets intended to finance millions of peoples' retirement. This volume illustrates several ways in which retirement risk management should be conceived of differently from bank practice.

In the wake of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, lawmakers and regulators around the world have changed the playbook for how banks and other financial institutions must manage their risks and report their activities. The US Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and the European System of Financial Supervision (ESFS) is also crafting a framework to supervise regulated financial sector institutions including banks, insurers, pension funds, and asset managers. The implosion of the financial sector has also prompted calls for accounting changes from those seeking to better understand how assets and liabilities are reported.

Initially banks were seen by many as the most important focus for regulatory reform, but other institutions are now attracting policymaker attention. There is logic to this in terms of managing systemic risk and ensuring a level playing field that avoids arbitrage between institutional structures . Yet the nature of pension and insurer liabilities is so different from that of bank liabilities that careful attention is needed in drafting appropriate rules. The new rules are having both direct and spill-over effects on retirement systems around the world.

The first half of this volume undertakes an assessment of how global responses to the financial crisis are potentially altering how insurers, pension plan sponsors, and policymakers will manage risk in the decades to come. The second half evaluates developments in retirement saving and retirement products, to determine which and how these might help meet shortfalls in retirement provision.

Inhaltsverzeichnis:

1: Olivia S. Mitchell, Raimond Maurer, and J. Michael Orszag: Introduction: Implications of the New Regulatory Order for Retirement System Risk Management
I. Global Risk Assessment for Pensions and Annuities
2: Peter A. Fisher: The New Insurance Supervisory Landscape: Implications for Insurance and Pensions
3: Raimond Maurer, Olivia S. Mitchell, Ralph Rogalla, and Ivonne Siegelin: Accounting-based Asset Return Smoothing in Participating Life Annuities: Implications for Annuitants, Insurers, and Policymakers
4: Joseph Busillo, Thomas Harvey, and Bryan Hoffman: Mark-to-Market Accounting for United States Corporate Pensions: Implementation and Impact
5: Karel Van Hulle: Risk Disclosure in the European Insurance Industry: Implications for Occupational Pension Funds
6: Brian Reid and Dan Waters: Pensions, Risk, and Global Systemically Important Financial Institutions
II. Developments in Retirement Saving and Retirement Products
7: Asli Demirgüç-Kunt, Leora Klapp er, and Georgios A. Panos: Determinants of Saving for Old Age around the World
8: Andrew G. Biggs: Retirement Replacement Rates: What and How
9: Catherine Donnelly, Montserrat Guillén, and Jens Perch Nielsen: Fundamentals of Cost and Risk that Matter to Pension Savers and Life Annuitants
10: Javier Alonso, Alfonso Arellano, and David Tuesta: Pension Fund Investment in Infrastructure and Global Financial Regulation