The Economics of Pension and Variable Retirement Schemes

The observed significant decrease in the average retirement age contributes strongly to the financial problems faced by the social security old-age insurances of the industrialized countries. This study surveys the theoretical, empirical and political issues involved in order to explain the evolution of such systems and their reforms. The book describes the impact of variable retirement options on the design of efficient pension policies, and provides an extensive survey of the literature of pension economics. The author analyzes induced retirement behaviour in the presence of uncertain lifetimes and liquidity constraints, and discusses the existence and direction of induced labour supply inefficiencies.