The adequacy and optimality of retirement provision: household behaviour and the design of pensions

英国目前正处于国家养老金供应和私人养老金安排的全面改革之中。最近的政策改革包括从2016年4月起引入“新的国家养老金”，进一步提高国家养老金年龄，并在工作场所养老金中引入“自动登记”。这些变化是在长期趋势持续的背景下发生的，包括许多雇主提供的养老金的慷慨程度下降，以及预期寿命的增加。这些趋势和政策改革对家庭储蓄和退休决策具有重大影响。总的来说，为退休积累资源变得越来越重要，但随着国家和雇主后退一步，确保这种积累的责任正越来越多地转移到个人身上。我们提出了一个研究计划，将研究这种变化的环境和最近的政策改革对家庭行为和福祉的影响。我们的两组核心研究问题是：1)工作年龄家庭为退休储蓄是否合适？连续几代领取养老金的人退休后的生活水平可能会是什么？2)最近的改革和其他长期趋势可能对家庭储蓄和退休决策产生什么长期影响？不同类别的人(出生于20世纪40年代、50年代、60年代和70年代的人)在为退休而私人储蓄(以及在不同类型的资产中储蓄)的动机截然不同，当他们接近传统上职业生涯的终点时，他们将面临不同的退休动机。这引起了相当大的政策关注，即虽然最近退休的人平均拥有相对较高的资源水平，但目前工作的人没有为退休储蓄足够的资金。我们的目标是通过探索目前处于工作年龄的家庭未来退休生活水平的现有知识，大大增加政策制定者可用的证据基础。为了做到这一点，我们将使用有关这些群体已经做出的决定的最佳可用数据，考虑他们过去的收入以及他们面临的国家和私人养老金结构，以估计他们未来的行为。然后，我们将考虑他们可能的退休生活水平与工作期间享有的生活水平以及贫困的绝对门槛进行比较，以评估家庭储蓄的“适当性”。我们研究的一个重要特点将是研究不同群体之间的差异，因为他们已经面临和未来将面临不同的激励措施。我们还将分别分析养老金和储蓄环境的各种变化--包括具体的政策改革--对家庭储蓄和退休行为的影响，从而对家庭资源的影响。这将使我们能够评估这些变化对退休后生活水平的影响。我们建议考虑的趋势和政策变化的影响是：一些雇主提供的养老金普及率下降，国家养老金年龄提高，新的国家养老金的引入，年金价格的变化，以及‘自动登记’中包含的对储蓄的财政激励。这样的分析对政策制定者来说相当重要。了解最近大规模的政策改革对家庭行为和生活水平的长期影响，对于评估一项政策在实现目标方面的有效性至关重要。此外，需要更好地了解养老金和储蓄环境的一些长期变化的影响，以更好地了解未来哪些(如果有的话)政策改革可能是可取的。

The UK is currently in the midst of sweeping changes to both state pension provision and private pension arrangements. Recent policy reforms include the introduction of the 'new state pension' from April 2016, further increases in the state pension age and the introduction of 'auto-enrolment' into workplace pensions. These changes are happening against a backdrop of continuing long-term trends, including a decline in the generosity of many employer-provided pensions and increasing life expectancies. These trends and policy reforms have significant implications for households' saving and retirement decisions. In very general terms, the environment is one in which accumulating resources to finance retirement is increasingly important, but the responsibility for ensuring such accumulation happens is shifting ever more to the individual as the state and employers take a step back.We propose a programme of research that will study the implications of this changing environment and recent policy reforms for household behaviour and well-being. Our two central sets of research questions are:1) Are working-age households saving appropriately for retirement? What will be the likely standards of living in retirement of successive generations of pensioners?2) What are the likely long-run impacts of recent reforms and other long run trends on household saving and retirement decisions?Different cohorts of individuals (those born in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s) have faced very different incentives to save privately for retirement (and to do so in different types of assets), and will face different incentives to retire as they approach what would traditionally have been the end of working life. This had led to considerable policy concern that while those recently retired have, on average, done so with relatively high levels of resources, those currently in working life are not saving enough for their retirement.We aim to add considerably to the evidence base available for policy makers by exploring what can be known now about the future retirement living standards of currently working age households. We will do this by using the best available data on the decisions that these cohorts have already made, taking into account their past earnings and the structure of state and private pensions that they face, to estimate their future behaviour. We will then consider how their likely retirement standards of living will compare to those enjoyed during working life and to absolute thresholds of poverty in order to assess the 'appropriateness' of the household saving. An important feature of our research will be to study how this differs across different cohorts, given the different incentives they have faced and will face in future.We will also analyse separately the impact of various changes to the pensions and savings environment - including specific policy reforms - on household saving and retirement behaviour, and consequently on households' resources. This will allow us to assess the impact of these changes on standards of living in retirement. The trends and policy changes whose effects we propose to consider are: the declining prevalence of some employer-provided pensions, increases in the state pension age, the introduction of the new state pension, changes in annuity prices, and the financial incentives to save encompassed in 'auto-enrolment'.Such analysis is of considerable importance for policy makers. Understanding the long-run impact of recent, extremely large policy reforms on households' behaviour and living standards is vital for any assessment of a policy's effectiveness at meeting its objectives. Furthermore, greater understanding of the impact of some long-running changes in the pensions and saving environment is needed to better understand which (if any) future policy reforms may be desirable.