Projects (116)
Netspar endows several research projects at any given time, ranging from € 10,000 to € 500,000. Below you will find more information about ongoing and completed projects. Researchers can submit proposals within the various calls for short-term and long-term research projects that Netspar expands during the year. For more information, please contact policy advisor Silvie van Halder via 013 – 466 37 93 or via email.
The effectiveness of decision aids in pension communication and the role of literacy
This project investigates the effectiveness of decision aids in pension communication for participants of a pension scheme. Pension Decision Aids (PDAs) are interactive online tools that through a sequence of questions and information guide participants towards making informed pension decisions. PDAs (1) explicitly state the decision that needs to be considered; (2) provide information about the options, associated benefits, risks, probabilities and uncertainties; (3)…
Trading behavior of institutional investors
The proposed research focuses on the trading behavior of institutional investors, and pension funds in particular. Kristy Jansen recently started a joint project with Jules van Binsbergen and Ralph Koijen about factor investing. Factor investing plays a central role in performance attribution and performance measurement. However, little is known about the overall exposure of institutional investors to these factors. In this study the goal…
Development and Tests of a Model for Inertia in Retirement Decisions
About 50% of Dutch employees think they should do more to understand their financial situation after retirement (Wijzer in Geldzaken, 2015, p. 4). Yet, they postpone decisions about pension and pension adjustment (see also Krijnen, Breugelmans, Zeelenberg, 2014). In the meantime, the Dutch Pension system is economized (the Dutch Witteveen kader), meaning that people will have to consider adjusting their replacement rate and retirement…
Understanding and improving pension savings by combining incentivized experiments, surveys, and administrative big data – A general employed population sample with a focus on the selfemployed
Pension-savers are a hugely heterogeneous group with varying preferences, beliefs and biases (PBBs). In this project we provide detailed insights into PBBs in representative samples of Dutch self-employed and employees and examine the relation of PBBs to (pension) savings decisions. In two work packages (WP), combining methods from behavioral economics, political science and data science, our project delivers knowledge and input for the design of targeted policies and…
The causes and consequences of retirement: a sociological perspective
This project will study the strategies that older men and women (aged 60+) use to cope with the new reality of an extended working life. We will study the determinants of the labor force transitions of older workers before and after retirement, and the consequences for their health and wellbeing, and involvement in other socially productive behaviors such as volunteering and caring. The project…
Pensions products for heterogeneous agents accommodating for life events
The provision of income after retirement is in a state of flux. Traditionally, “one-size fits all” funded pension plans complemented the government schemes. Increasingly, however, the provision of retirement income can be tailored to individual characteristics and preferences. These developments have created a market for pension products such as tax-exempt savings plans and life-cycle investment funds. Such pension products aim to optimally allocate investment…
Untangling Human Interaction Patterns: Learning from Automated Emotion Detection in the Consumer Pension Context
Artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly enters multiple aspects of our lives, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of day-to-day operations (AI100 2016). Specifically pension service providers may profit from this development. Despite huge investments in call center labor and software, providers only manage to resolve about half of customer requests in a satisfactory manner (Upbin 2013). Emotions are critical to successful service interactions in general (Mattila…
The effects of genetic health risks on personal expected longevity, insurance coverage, and retirement decisions
Life-cycle decisions are in part based on how long people expect to live. Therefore, observable health risks have the potential to affect individual-level decision making. Currently, genetic health information is becoming increasingly available to patients and consumers, but the extent to which genetic information may affect retirement decisions, e.g., savings, insurance coverage, and withdrawals of pension funds, is largely unexplored. We propose a research…
Inter- and intragenerational solidarity among Dutch citizens
A pressing question about the future organization of the Dutch pension system is whether the level of solidarity among pension funds participants can be maintained. As a result of the mandatory enrollment in the pension funds associated with their employers, the Dutch pension system inherently enforces solidarity in various dimensions (Hoff 2015). For example, through collective risk-sharing, solidarity occurs within a generation of pension…
Occupation-based life expectancy: towards actuarial fairness of determining future statutory retirement age
Various policies affect actuarial fairness of pension systems. Bonenkamp & ter Rele (2013) find a Matthew effect in the Dutch 2ndpension pillar due to differences in life expectancy, whereas the tax-based funding of the 1st pillar entails a stronger reversed redistribution. Characteristics of 2nd pillar pensions affecting actuarial fairness include build-up of pension entitlements (DB, DC and NDC schemes are differently affected by differences in life expectancy), modes…
