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The market for retirement products in Sweden

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Author Info
Palmer, Edward
Abstract

Far-reaching changes in the regulation of financial markets and the organization of public pensions in the 1980s and 1990s transformed the landscape for retirement products in Sweden. First, banking and insurance were extensively deregulated in the 1980s, while the securities markets experienced major expansion. Insurance received a large boost from the authorization of unit-linked products in the early 1990s. Second, the public pension system was reformed. Survivor benefits for widows were eliminated from the public pillar in the late 1980s, leading to a large increase in demand for term life insurance. The old defined benefit public pension system was replaced by a notional or nonfinancial defined contribution (NDC) scheme, while a funded defined contribution (FDC) component was also created in the public pillar. The four occupational pension funds that cover the majority of Swedish workers were also converted into FDC schemes. This paper reviews the implications of these changes for the Swedish annuity market. It discusses the regulation of payout options in Sweden, highlighting the compulsory use of life annuities in the public pillar and the preference for term annuities in the occupational funds. It examines the performance of providers of retirement products, including the PPM, and reviews the increasing focus on risk-based regulation and supervision. The paper also emphasizes Sweden's success in moving in the direction of increased funding and privatization of old age insurance, while maintaining its basic character as a highly developed welfare state.

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Paper provided by The World Bank in its series Policy Research Working Paper Series with number 4748.

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Date of creation: 01 Oct 2008
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Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4748

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Related research
Keywords: ; Debt Markets; Emerging Markets; Pensions&Retirement Systems; Insurance Law;

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This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Impavido, Gregorio & Thorburn, Craig & Wadsworth, Mike, 2004. "A conceptual framework for retirement products : Risk sharing arrangements between providers and retirees," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3208, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
  2. Jeffrey R. Brown & Olivia S. Mitchell & James M. Poterba, 2000. "Mortality Risk, Inflation Risk, and Annuity Products," NBER Working Papers 7812, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Edward Palmer, 2002. "Swedish Pension Reform: How Did It Evolve, and What Does It Mean for the Future?," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security Pension Reform in Europe, pages 171-210 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
  4. Olivia S. Mitchell & David McCarthy, 2002. "Annuities for an Ageing World," CeRP Working Papers 21, Center for Research on Pensions and Welfare Policies, Turin (Italy). [Downloadable!]
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  5. Eklöf, Matias & Hallberg, Daniel, 2006. "Estimating retirement behavior with special early retirement offers," Working Paper Series 2006:13, Uppsala University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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This page was last updated on 2009-12-19.

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