University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Government and Public Administration

Several recent corporate governance scandals relate to non-disclosure or high amounts of pension benefits given to executive directors. The lack of disclosure and transparency has gained pensions benefits greater attention as a significant part of the total remuneration received by executive directors. Due to the associated problems there is a greater need for better disclosure and in turn heightened transparency towards shareholders.   This qualitative case study focuses on general retailers in Sweden and the United Kingdom. Due to the lack of research five general retailers from respective country were chosen to be examined and compared during 2006-2010. The aim is to examine the disclosure of individual pension benefits of executive directors and the development in levels of pension benefits in the following general retailers Bilia, Clas Ohlson, Debenhams, Dunelm Mill, Fenix Outdoor, Halfords, JD Sports Fashion,  Kappahl, Mekonomen and N Brown Group. The findings show that the majority of general retailers have complied with their respective corporate governance code during 2006-2010. The level of disclosure has differentiated, where UK general retailers have a higher level of individual disclosure. The development in levels of pension benefits has shown that there are higher amounts of pension benefits in Swedish general retailers. A negative trend in the development of the Chief Executive Officers amounts of pension benefits has mainly been present in 2007-2009. Reversal of the negative trend came in the last year of the case study. No distinctive trends were found in the development of pension benefits for all other executive directors.

At the end of 2005, the State Council of China passed ”The Decision on adjusting the Individual Account of Basic Pension System”, which adjusted the individual account in the 1997 basic pension system. In this essay, we will analyze the adjustment above, and use Life Annuity Actuarial Theory to establish the basic pension substitution rate model. Monte Carlo simulation is also used to prove the rationality of the model. Some suggestions are put forward associated with the substitution rate according to the current policy.

The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008 was a serious economic downturn which affected economies around the world. Like many other areas of investment, pension funds were heavily affected by this crisis. Prior to the GFC, a combination of financial innovation, demand for higher returns, overdependence on ratings agencies and investor complacency increased the severity of the crisis on investors, including those in pensions. As a result of the crisis, we can conclude that there have been changes in the attitudes towards asset management for pension funds. Investors have generally become more conservative when investing, and are placing a greater emphasis on the risk/return profile of investments. In addition, investors have learned that liquidity risk is an important consideration when investing, and that they should always consider the fundamentals of investing when they are making investment decisions. Finally, those investing in pensions should remember that pension investment is a long-term strategy and should not be overly alarmed by an economic downturn such as that of the GFC.

Since the financial markets keep developing, the way of off-balance-sheet financing weeds through the old to bring forth the new, Accounting information frequently cannot promptly and faithfully responds the real finance condition of a company. Those activities, such as operating leases, sale of receivables with the right of recourse, asset-backed securitization (ABS), joint ventures and investment in affiliates, finance subsidiaries, take-or-pay contracts, throughput arrangements, hedging activities, pensions and other employee benefits, have insufficient expression in financial reports that may let investors neglect the influence on the company behind these activities. This research namely wants to discuss how off-balance-sheet financing activities influence the value of the stockholder equity. Because the types of off-balance-sheet financing activities are many, and the correlative information obtains not easily, this research only chooses available information ¡§off-balance-sheet pensions financing¡¨ as the proxy variable of off-balance-sheet financing. It is found that, the equity book value and abnormal earnings as Ohlson (1995) says, have significant positive influence on stock price. It is also found that preceding-period off-balance-sheet pensions financing can be used to forecast current stock price, this may attribute to that investors only can obtain the preceding -period off-balance-sheet pensions financing, but unable to obtain current pensions information. Among the related theories that affect the funding policy, the findings suggest that: (1) Financial slack theory is tenable. (2) The debt covenant effect theory has not obtained the uniform conclusion. (3) Tax effect theory isn¡¦t supported.

The purpose of this research is to discuss the "Rational Reform Plan on Public Servant Pension Income", systematic inquiries into the perception and manner of Penghu County public servants towards the reform plan, analyze the perception and manner differences by the public servants with different backgrounds, and propose conclusions and suggestions for a smooth and rational pension reformation. The objectives of this research are as follows: 1. Understand the perception and manner of Penghu County public servants towards the "Rational Reform Plan on Public Servant Pension Income"; 2. Understand the perception and manner differences by current and retired public servants towards the reform plan; 3. Understand if there is a difference in perception and manner by current public servants with different backgrounds; 4. Understand if there is a difference in perception and manner by retired public servants with different backgrounds; 5. Understand the feelings and suggestions of the Penghu County public servants towards the reform plan. This research is conducted with the literature analysis and questionnaire survey methods. Using current and retired public servants of Penghu County Government and respective institutions as the subjects, the number of sampling current public servants is 437 (distributed 437 questionnaire), 416 questionnaire is returned, the number of valid questionnaire is 404 and the ratio of valid questionnaire is 92.45%; the number of sampling retired public servants is 112 (distributed 112 questionnaire), 61 questionnaire is returned, the number of valid questionnaire is 56 and the ratio of valid questionnaire is 50%. This research obtains the below conclusions: 1. Most participants feel the domestic economic planning for senior is insufficient and approve to adopt gradual reduction of retired planning difference; 2. Most participants approve the reform concept but feel the plan content lacks fairness and the plan guidance is insufficient; 3. The participants have different views on whether the plan is helpful to the society, dignity of the public servants and national financial pressure; 4. The reform plan helps in easing early retirement but is afraid on letting unsuitable staff to remain in office and reduction of trust in the government; 5. The current and retired staff have different perceptions to the reform background and strategy planning; there is no perceptive difference in the strategy influence; 6. There is perceptive difference to the strategy background by current public servant of different ages, service seniority, positions, levels and institutions; different genders and education levels do not show any difference. 7. There is perceptive difference to the plan connotation by current public servant of different backgrounds; 8. There is perceptive difference to the strategy influence by current public servant of different genders, service seniority, education levels and positions; different ages, levels and institutions do not show any difference; 9. There is perceptive difference to the strategy background by retired staff of different genders, ages, service seniority, education levels and institutions; different positions and levels do not show any difference. 10. There is perceptive difference to the strategy influence by retired staff of different ages, service seniority, education levels and institutions; different genders, positions and levels do not show any difference. With the above conclusions, this research proposes the below suggestions: 1. More professional and less politics in the civil system reform; 2. Pension income reform is not to be pursued to maintain good faith in the government; 3. The reform plan should be legalized before implementing; 4. Review before revision of irrational reform stipulations; 5. Integrated measures and advance announcement; 6. Early planning of old age economic planning system; 7. Planning of retirement and social welfare system; 8. Public servants should plan lifetime income to safeguard old age.

A Study of the Influence of Enterprise Pensions System on Work Force Age Structure and Work Force Utilization in China Steel Corporation THESIS ABSTRACT The key factor of whether an enterprise can achieve its operation goal is effective utilization and management of human resources. In order to accomplish the goal of effective recruitment, training, utilization and retaining of human resources, an enterprise should monitor and control the status of the environmental change and enterprise development, and plan, improve and implement its human resource management system constantly. China Steel Corporation (CSC) was officially registered on December 3, 1971. As of the end of January, 2000, CSC has 8,973 employees with an average age of 43.97. Among them, 5,617 or 62% of its total employees are between 40 to 50 years. The aging statistic indicates a relatively narrow age spectrum, which results in the over concentration of education degrees, ages and years in services of its employees, i.e., the homogeneity of its human resources. Once the business expansion of the enterprise becomes slow or even remains stagnant, its human resources can not be effectively dispersed or reallocated, which indicates limited promotion opportunities due to a lower turnover rate. Consequently, the company development is eligible to its canyon period, and growth is ended; then human aging becomes deteriorating. However, the legal labor pensions system is of very limited influence to improve CSC worker turnover rate and age structure. This pension system can not solve the current problem. Thus, we analyze and examine feasible human resource strategies in CSC from the work force utilization aspect. We also recommend a series of strategic thinking, e.g. its internal retirement adjustment, preferential early retirement, CSC Group work force utilization, business outsourcing, inner createpreneur help, etc., to improve the workers' age structure effectively, keep excellent replacement, activate work force, and enhance human resource utilization efficiently. By doing so, CSC will constantly upgrade its competitive advantage, and ensure its continuous operation.

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The system of Labor Pension in Taiwan deeply influences every class of labor and its intention and regulation of retirement system also affects to operation of government financial budget. The study aims to discuss the trend toward fewer children and the population aging which are somehow affecting forward finance perspective of holistic Labor Pension Fund. Especially, we confront an unbalance situation of population structure, how it reflected the contribution income of labor pension fund and its disbursement of pension payment and how it associated to operation of Labor Pension Fund. In addition, the government should be realized how to deal with the development of population in the future, gear up for designing a better supplementary measure. Therefore, the study will be analyzed with aspect of finance on the population aging phenomenon and how birth rate decline affect toward the New Labor Pension System and Old Labor Pension System. Hopefully, the study results can benefit our labor retirement policy. The study results as follows: A. For the trend toward fewer children, in the short term, the evidence shows that it is unclear either on contribution of the New Labor Pension System or Old Labor Pension System. However, in the mid- and long term, the contribution of fund will be gradually affected, beginning to decrease slowly with the contribution. B. For the population aging phenomenon, Old Labor Pension System on payment from fund indicted that incomes are much more than disbursements so it won¡¦t be a burden on Old Labor Pension Fund. On the contrary, due to different payment regulation between New Labor Pension System and Old Labor Pension System, the population aging is irrelevant to disbursement of New Labor Pension.

In spring 1958, the political work of developing a new pension system stalled, after they conducted the negotiations between the government and the opposition stranded. The Social Democratic government was keen to get through a pension proposition and chose to submit its proposal to the Parliament, in the hope that members of the opposition would abandon their party line. The government previously lost its majority in the second chamber, since the Center Party left the government because they were of a different opinion than the Social Democrats. The Social Democrats Party of Prime Minister Tage Erlander in the forefront plunged to govern in minority. On April 26, conducted the vote in parliament vote which rejected the Social Democrats' proposals and Prime Minister Tage Erlander announced that he would seek the King to dissolve parliament because it then would be new elections to the parliament lower house on June 1. There came an dissolution and an election campaign was to wait before the Swedes would go to the polls. In the study, the campaign portrayed the basis of the Dagens Nyheter, Arbetet and Svenska dagbladet conveys the image of news articles and editorials. An election campaign that was dominated by the issue of pensions in the first place but also the People's struggle for a consensus and a opposition hope of a change of power. Keywords: Pension, consensus, social security, government option and election campaign