New Zealand's ageing population poses many economic challenges. The Retirement Policy and Research Centre is an academically focused centre specialising in the economic issues of demographic change. The centre's sphere of interest includes: - public provision of retirement income (New Zealand Superannuation)
- private provision (including KiwiSaver)
- the accumulation and decumulation phases of retirement saving
- accident compensation
- tax and transfer policy.
The Retirement Policy and Research Centre (RPRC) contributes to public debate in regular breakfast briefings, submissions, working papers and articles as outlined in regular newsletters. The centre hosts PensionReforms, a website that fosters international debate on public and private pensions, tax, compulsory saving regimes, employment patterns and decumulation issues. Abstracts and commentaries on leading academic pension papers provide a searchable, sortable resource for researchers. PensionReforms is supported by a panel of international contributing editors. Latest news 2010 Overseas Pensions ForumIn association with the Human Rights Commission, the Retirement Policy and Research Centre hosted a Pension Forum to discuss the treatment of overseas pensions and New Zealand superannuation.
| When: |
Wednesday 24 February 2010, 1-5pm |
| Where: |
The University of Auckland Business School, Case Room 3, Level 0,
Owen G Glenn Building, 12 Grafton Road, Auckland |
For information about this event, please visit the event page. ACC ForumThe ACC Group, in association with the Retirement Policy and Research Centre hosted an ACC forum - ACC debate: how do we pay for ACC? For copies of the presentations, please visit the event page. Working PaperThe Retirement Policy and Research Centre's latest Working Paper 2009-2 (1MB) explores the background of current pension policy, especially pension portability. It appears that pension policy in New Zealand has developed in an ad hoc manner, often without public consultation, and often with unintended consequences. An analysis of complaints, policy, legislation and recommendations regarding the treatment of overseas pensions and of New Zealand Superannuation overseas provides a foundation for discussion of suitable principles to guide future decision making and policy formation. See the press release and executive summary. PensionCommentaryThis Pension Commentary, contributing to the ACC funding debate, RPRC 2009-2, develops the Retirement Policy and Research Centre discussion begun at the ACC Summit: Reviewing New Zealand's Accident Compensation System, held in Wellington 29-30 June 2009. Michael Littlewood first discussed the case for treating ACC on a pay as you go (PAYG) basis (see RPRC 2009-1). Susan St John then discussed the lessons from history. While pure PAYG is a logical solution to the financing of ACC, history suggests that it may also be as misunderstood as actuarial full funding. Political agreement must be sought regarding a pragmatic level of reserves as originally envisaged by Sir Owen Woodhouse. Breakfast BriefingAt RPRC’s breakfast briefing on Monday 9 November, Treasury's Dr Grant Scobie addressed the question: "Do we have any idea whether Kiwi households are saving or dissaving?" His paper, drawing mainly on data from the 2002 and 2004 waves of SoFIE (approximately 1600 respondents) and the Reserve Bank’s figures on Household Financial Assets and Liabilities, is due out before the end of the year. In the interim, his presentation slides are available here. RPRC UpdateThe December newsletter is now available. It contains a summary of Dr Grant Scobie’s Breakfast Briefing about the contributions surveys make to our knowledge about Kiwis’ saving, along with information on RPRC’s latest working papers, PensionBriefings, news, and the ACC Forum on 15 December. ReportThe report: The annuities market in New Zealand, prepared for the Ministry of Economic Development, notes that while much attention has been paid to the accumulation of retirement savings in New Zealand, very little attention has been given to the decumulation process facilitated by drawdown and annuity products. KiwiSaver has changed the landscape, and from 2012 people will come into retirement with increasingly large tax-subsidised lump-sums that must be managed over an uncertain lifespan, in an uncertain investment climate, including unknown levels of inflation. The widespread ‘market failure problem’ of annuities is reflected in their apparent viability only under conditions of substantial state intervention. PensionBriefingsThe following new PensionBriefing is now available: PensionBriefing 2009-6 Modelling the distributional aspects of KiwiSaver: methodology and results. The taxpayer-funded subsidies to KiwiSaver are distributed to members based on the contributions made by individuals and their employers. Over time, the subsidies that relate to the employers’ contributions become relatively more important as the real value of the fixed-dollar “member tax credit” diminishes. The KiwiSaver Excel Spreadsheets allow the impact of these to be modeled, and highlight aspects of the KiwiSaver scheme that could have substantial distributional implications now, and in the future as the scheme matures. SubmissionThe RPRC made a submission to the Finance and Expenditure Committee on the Taxation (Consequential Rate Alignment and Remedial Matters) Bill on 25 August 2009 followed by a teleconference on 26 August. In that submission, the RPRC argued for a full review of the tax treatment of saving vehicles and the interaction of ‘income’ earned through those with the welfare system. Postgraduate research resourcesView the resource page for pensions and retirement issues in the University's library. |