Projects (89)
Netspar endows several research projects at any given time, ranging from € 10,000 to € 500,000. The projects can be executed by an individual researcher or a team of researchers. The Netspar Board of Directors awards the projects based on grant proposals that have been submitted, after consulting with the Scientific and/or Partner Research Council. More information on research funding
Design of Pension Contracts in Incomplete Markets and under Uncertainty
Life-cycle funds are an increasingly important topic in discussions about retirement income, given the trend of moving from Defined Benefit (DB) to Defined Contribution (DC) pension plans. We have witnessed in recent years a rapid growth in the number of pension plans that offer life-cycle funds. Furthermore, the Dutch Social Economic Council (SER) has put forward reform proposals that suggest the creation of personal…
Choice architecture in pensions and retirement
This research program will analyse the impact of customization and freedom of choice in pensions and retirement on social welfare. For rational economists more freedom of choice is always better. However, empirical evidence and insights from behavioural economics suggest that choice architecture in pension plans could substantially impact the social welfare gain or losses. We focus on two aspects of choice architecture: choice limitation…
Data Science Solutions to Enhance Pension Communication
Communication is crucial in the domain of pensions and insurance. The aim of the proposed project is to leverage the power of state-of-the-art data science methods to study and enhance communication in two modalities: the textual modality (e.g., email messages between clients and pension providers) and the visual modality (e.g., tracking eye movements of clients reading information on the websites of pension providers). Textual…
Longer life, longer in good health, working longer? Implications of educational differences for the pension system
A person’s socioeconomic position (SEP) is strongly associated with his or her health status and risk of disease and premature death. In all countries with available data, including the Netherlands, people with a higher level of education live longer, and much longer in good health, than people with a lower level of education. This has important implications for the pension system. First, the heterogeneity…
Which type of pension systems protect against the income and health inequality consequences of a recession?
Background Recent decades have seen a large increase in the study of inequalities. How incomes are distributed, and especially the degree to which wealth is concentrated amongst the rich has garnered attention from academics, policy makers and the general public. Many of the key ideas in this literature are addressed in Capital in the 21st Century (Piketty, 2014), and continued work confirms that since…
Regulation of information provision for pension choices: Australia and the Netherlands compared
Background Around the world there has been a shift in retirement saving/benefit arrangements from public to private provision, and from traditional defined benefits to arrangements where individual pension fund members are required or encouraged to take the responsibility for decisions about the accumulation and decumulation of their retirement savings. Australia was an early mover with the introduction in 1992 of compulsory employer contributions into…
Comparison of variable annuities between The Netherlands and Denmark
Recently, the Dutch parliament passed a law that enables retirees to invest their pension wealth of Defined Contribution products in risky assets during the decumulation phase. Before that law it was compulsory to convert pension wealth at retirement in a life-long fixed annuity. Under the new law, life-long variable annuities are allowed as well. Products related to the new law are now entering the…
Pension Communication across Countries
Introduction In the Netherlands, Italy, and many other countries, recent reforms have made automatic mandatory pension saving less generous. The responsibility to guarantee an adequate standard of living has partly been shifted to individuals. Individuals have to make their own decisions on, for example, supplementary pension savings or on how to invest their DC pension assets. Making pension related decisions in a way that…
Design of the freedom of choice and customization of pension schemes
MOTIVATION An (excessively) high spending pressure among young households, a difference in ideal retirement ambitions between tenants and buyers and a potential further restriction of the fiscal options to build up a pension are hot topics at the moment. Giving people a wider freedom of choice creates more flexibility, a better link-up with the personal situation and it can prevent ‘excess savings’. However, our…
Consequences of further increasing the pension age
MOTIVATION By 2021, the state pension age will have increased to 67. Due to being linked to the remaining life expectancy after the age of 65, the state pension age is set to rise to 71.5 by 2060, according to current prognoses. According to a number of studies, however, healthy life expectancy rises slower than normal life expectancy. What are the long-term implications of…
