IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/uaajxx/v11y2007i1p17-48.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Impact of DC Pension Systems on Population Dynamics

Author

Listed:
  • Bonnie-Jeanne MacDonald
  • Andrew Cairns

Abstract

This study investigates the risk inherent in defined contribution (DC) pension plans on an individual and aggregate basis, based on U.S. data. Our aim is to gain insight into the consequences of a DC pension scheme becoming the predominant pillar of retirement income for an entire society. Using the stochastic simulated output of a DC flexible age-of-retirement model, we first determine the optimal investment strategies. We then examine the demographic retirement dynamics of an entire population of DC pension plan participants.We observe that even for the most risk-averse plan members there is a high level of uncertainty in an individual’s age at retirement. At the aggregate population level, we find that this uncertainty does not get dampened to any great extent by a diversification effect. Instead, the central role played by the market in determining retirement dates results in significant variation in the dependency ratio (the ratio of retirees to workers) over time. In addition, an attempt to ameliorate the outcome by introducing additional realistic features in the DC population modeling did little to dampen this volatility, which suggests that countries dominated by DC schemes of this type may, over time, be exposed to significant risk in the size of its labor force.

Suggested Citation

  • Bonnie-Jeanne MacDonald & Andrew Cairns, 2007. "The Impact of DC Pension Systems on Population Dynamics," North American Actuarial Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(1), pages 17-48.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:uaajxx:v:11:y:2007:i:1:p:17-48
    DOI: 10.1080/10920277.2007.10597436
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/10920277.2007.10597436
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/10920277.2007.10597436?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. MacDonald, Bonnie-Jeanne & Cairns, Andrew J.G., 2011. "Three retirement decision models for defined contribution pension plan members: A simulation study," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 1-18, January.
    2. Barrett, Alan & Kearney, Ide & O'Brien, Martin, 2007. "Quarterly Economic Commentary, Summer 2007," Forecasting Report, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number QEC20072, June.
    3. Whelan, Shane, 2007. "Valuing Ireland's Pension System," Quarterly Economic Commentary: Special Articles, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), vol. 2007(2-Summer), pages 55-80.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:uaajxx:v:11:y:2007:i:1:p:17-48. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/uaaj .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.