Ageing populations, retirement incomes and public policy: what really matters

Michael Littlewood

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: When setting public policies on retirement incomes, governments should focus on objectives they have a unique capacity to influence. Only governments can reliably eliminate poverty in old age, level the tax and regulatory playing fields for financial service providers/savers and gather impeccable, deep data. They can also help citizens to understand the things that really matter to individual saving decisions. Governments should avoid trying to influence or direct private provision for retirement by tax breaks or compulsion (‘hard’ or ‘soft’). That those common interventions seem not to work is only one of their many shortcomings. Then, citizens and employers should make their own decisions about financial provision for retirement.

Keywords: retirement incomes; public policy; universal pension; private provision (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H55 J14 J26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-05-27
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age and nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:56232

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