This thesis consists of three essays, which all concern the dynamics of pension reform. The first essay evaluates the financial balance and the demographic adjustability of the reformed Swedish pay-as-you-go pension system. The main findings are that the demographic adjustability of the system is poor. Furthermore, the financial balance and pension levels are, to a large degree, dependent on the pension fund and its returns. Making some alterations to the system's benefit formula may improve the adjustability of the system, as well as decreasing its pension fund dependency. It is also shown that the new public system imposes an age-dependent implicit tax on labor earnings that is falling with age. Within the pay-as-you-go system, this tax is large for younger workers for whom almost the whole contribution is regarded as a tax. By introducing a public defined contribution system, the total implicit tax may be reduced since the defined contribution system implies a negative implicit tax because savings are subsidized within the defined contribution system. In the second essay a three-generation OLG model for analyzing a privatization of PAYG old-age social security is developed. Furthermore, it proposes an explicit reform for how the privatization transition may be undertaken. The set of government policy instruments is limited to debt issuing and proportional labor income taxation. The possibilities of a Pareto-improving privatization, given the proposed reform, are then analyzed. Contrary to models where a two-generation OLG framework is used, the three-generation framework creates possibilities for a Pareto-improving privatization of old-age social security, since the PAYG system induces a non-optimal implicit tax over the life cycle. By shifting to an optimal tax policy cannot only the pension claims accrued under the PAYG system be financed, but the shift will also be Pareto-improving. In the third essay the performance of the reformed Latvian pay-as-you-go pension system is evaluated against the background of an exceptional projected decrease in the Latvian labor force. The pension system is designed to handle the upcoming difficulties, and special attention has been given in the design to keep the expenditures low relative to the revenues, by introducing rules dampening the increase in the pension expenditures. In the light of the pessimistic projection of the Latvian demography, the newly reformed PAYG system performs remarkably well. The expenditure reducing rules introduced have significant effects on the system's financial balance. The pension reform also includes the launch of a publicly run defined contributions pension system. It is shown that the resulting implicit tax imposed by the public pension system imposes on labor earnings is negative and increasing with age. That is, savings are subsidized in the public pension system. It is also shown that private savings are fully crowded out as individuals try to offset their savings in the pension system. Since individuals are capital constrained, they will have no private assets at all. From a welfare perspective, this suggests the overall contribution rate to the public pension system to be too high. / <p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2002</p>

<p>This thesis deals with a very important issue in South African society, i.e. the provision of financial and non-cash support to older persons. Older persons in South Africa can be described as a sizeable but vulnerable group requiring specific protection. Section 27 of the South African Constitution of 1996 obliges the state to take reasonable legislative and other measures within available resources to progressively realise the right of access to social security. Hence, the steps taken by the state to promote older persons&rsquo / right of access to social security and to protect their right to dignity need to be evaluated. The legislative framework for the provision of financial and non-cash support to older persons currently is fragmented into various statutes dealing with retirement income, state grants to older persons and care and support services for older persons. Therefore, the current legislation lacks an integrated approach to the provision of support and care to older persons, as well as a central principle on which to base future legislation concerning older persons. One such principle that could potentially be adopted is intergenerational solidarity, which can be described as the solidarity between the active working-age population, as one generation, from which benefits flow to older persons as the other. This thesis evaluates whether intergenerational solidarity should form the basis of South African legislation on the provision of retirement income and the provision of care and support to older persons, and if so, whether it in fact does. If the answer to the latter is in the negative, the thesis further examines whether the current process to reform the retirement income system and related legislation in South Africa would be a suitable platform to introduce the concept of intergenerational solidarity to legislation concerning older persons.</p>

Pension funds play a large role in the UK pension system since the returns of the funds determine how large the total pension will be. The future retirees can choose between active and passive fund management where the active management often is more expensive. In this study 102 actively managed UK equity pension funds are analyzed in order to see if managers have sufficient skill to generate risk adjusted return to cover the cost imposed on the investors. The result implies that the active pension funds in aggregate, before expenses, hold a portfolio that imitates market returns during 2000 to 2012. Bootstrap simulations suggest that only eight funds out of the sample of 102 have skilled managers and six of these managers are skilled enough to produce risk adjusted excess return large enough to cover the expenses imposed on the investor.

The purpose of this study is to find existing circumstances in our country and a elder long-term care system of preventing transitions. Through the existing social insurance, for example: health insurance, national pension, labor insurance and the elderly welfare legal in our country, to compare with the other social countries, I hope to use the research analysis to find the problems of policies or legislated process that we need to prevent before the elder long-term care insurance started. Through the generalize analysis and history development of elder long-term care in many countries, use the Constitution and the Administrative Law to examine what Council of Grand Justices about Social Insurance interpretation and compare with the official policy offered by our government. I expect to avoid making mistakes and dispute like before and establishing the elder long-term care system which relieving burdens. After the analysis, I found that all of the advanced countries are almost confronting by problems like aging of population and the birthrate has been decreasing, and also confronting lack of care members and long-term care needed huge monetary payment issues. The key core of all the problems is whether it has enough money to the whole social welfare countries to be successful. Social welfare in democratic countries also face election activities carrying on social welfare politics. Ignoring national finance situations and majority political men were merely thinking off-the-shelf votes. It is priority for elder¡¦s policy but ignores the generation justice issues. Let me worry about whether descendant whom need care, not these elders, are there generations conflict being happened? In my opinion, to solve these problems is strengthening family function. If the whole social and nation wants to be stable, it is important to strengthen the family function. Therefore, the elder long-term care should be considered main family basis, in addition to ought to maintain the elder long-term care system and dualism and co-operate with National Health Insurance to work in coordination. The other elder social insurances have to adjust to unity, includes all kinds of old-age pensions similar nouns. Finally, it should be a definite principle and laws, and decrease indefinite concepts of law and reduce administrative discretion rights regarding pay items, thus it will protect people¡¦s rights instead of incurring damage beyond that could bring supervisory mechanism functions into full play after that.

The Labor Pension Act¡]LPA¡^was passed by the Taiwan Legislative Yuan on June 11, 2004 and the implementation date is July 1, 2005. The significant difference between the existing Taiwan Labor Standards Law (TLSL) and LPA is that LPA is a portable defined contribution (DC) type of scheme. Employers shall contribute on a monthly basis to the Labor Pension Fund by contributing maximum 6% of monthly wage into the individual pension fund accounts. The raised staffing cost is foreseeable and was expected to turn into a heavy burden to employers. To decrease the cost of staffing and the turnover rate, this study focuses on the reactions that enterprises would plan to take and response to. However, the new LPA was not carried out officially during the study period, we conclude the exploratory findings through the questionnaire to understand what type of flexibility practice that employers¡¦ plan to take and what kind of impact on organizational performance will be made. We selected the sample companies from manufacturing, services and financial industries from¡m2003 CommonWealth Magazine Top 1600 Enterprises Ranking¡n. In all, 137 of 630 HR managers to whom we sent surveys returned the questionnaires, this yielding a response rate of 21.75%. The findings are summarized as follows: 1.The larger scale of organization, the more tendencies toward numerical flexibility and financial flexibility practice. 2.Organizations that plan to exercise numerical flexibility practices e.g., layoff, severance, downsizing etc, expect the negative effects on organizational performance. 3.Organizations that plan to exercise functional flexibility expect the positive effects on organizational performance. Organizations plan to adopt job-rotations expect the enhancement of organizational performance. 4.Organizations that plan to exercise financial flexibility do not expect the noticeable positive effects on organizational performance. Among financial flexibility practices, organizations that plan to adjust current fringe benefits expect the negative effect on organizational performance. 5.Organizations that plan to execute the improved HRM exercises expect the improvement of the organizational performance. 6.Organizations that plan to exercise the numerical and financial flexibility expect to lead to tense relationships between workers and employers in the future.

人力資源管理策略運用作為管理思想的一環，原本就和社會經濟情勢息息相關，特別是在當前全球化發展助益下，受影響的層面，幾乎涵括了政治、經濟、社會價值與社會秩序等廣泛議題，意即人力資源管理策略運用所面臨的是來自於世界各國社會經濟環境的考驗。誠如管理學大師彼得杜拉克所言：「人是我們最大的資產」，人力資源管理要塑造出優勢的企業文化、正面的企業形象、良好的工作環境，以具前瞻性的獎勵計劃與引導設計，減少控制與威權管理，吸引優秀人才與維繫人才。 拜資訊科技的發達，藉著網路無遠弗屆的特性，工作型態多樣化與豐富化的程度已超出想像的範圍，員工與組織之間的關係因工作型態的不同，產生勞動本質根本的改變，員工不再為單一組織服務的工作態勢逐漸成型。企業在競爭力新戰場所爭奪的是可移動的智慧資本，卻又不能不面對成本的壓力，在經常重組與不斷轉型的時期，台灣的勞工退休金制度因經濟社會的發展成為「可攜式」的個人帳戶，企業在不斷轉型的過程中如何以適當的人力資源管理及運用作為因應，在進行以「人」為中心的業務流程改造與組織架構的調整時，能符合法令規範且持續維持人力質量的精緻化。本文各章節要點說明如下： 第一章：緒論 研究動機與目的、研究方法、研究範圍限制及流程架構。 第二章：文獻探討 人力資源管理的各功能領域是相互關聯及相互影響，策略性人力資源管理就是在促使人力資源管理的各項功能，成為一種相互支持的綿密網路，將組織的資源有效發展成競爭優勢的運用，結合組織成員之發展與組織目標，有效的達成組織任務。在資訊科技不斷革新的趨勢下，企業與員工都需要持續不斷學習與成長，以適應未來的環境，高素質的人力是企業賴以生存的重點；然而，勞動法制的變遷，瓦解了員工對組織的承諾，員工忠誠度持續下降，若是以人力資源作為競爭優勢，必需有效彌補日益淡薄的勞資關係。 第三章：企業退休金制度及其影響 由企業退休金制度之重要性，理論與演進，說明實施企業退休金制度之必要，探討不同國家的企業退休金制度文獻，期能由此提供我國企業退休金制度設計的觀念。環境改變及對企業的影響、因應策略摘要圖示如下圖 第四章：個案研究 由個案公司人力資源管理功能的SWOT分析，歸納出個案公司內部環境之優勢與劣勢、外在環境之機會與威脅，提出企業退休金制度是有效對策的重要因子；接續以個案公司企業退休金制度設計實務與效益分析提供印證。 企業退休金制度，對員工而言，是在現有法令規定之下，提昇退休後生活達適當水準，使員工的利益最大化，不僅可確保核心人才的維護，當薪資成長趨緩時仍能視組織經營成果提供誘因，同時可使組織保有長期活力與競爭力，無論是對個案公司或是對員工而言，此舉符合雙方利益，也確保個案公司核心人力之維護。 第五章：結論與建議 綜合各章之探討及個案研究提出企業退休金制度結論，並對勞工退休金新制提出建議。

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Finance and Economics. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

My study is motivated by standard setters interest in better understanding (and the gap in research as to) the effects of item complexity and disaggregation across a financial statement on users' decision processes (Bonner 2008; Glaum 2009; FASB 2010b). I examine whether complexity of an item and the method used to present the item on a financial statement influences nonprofessional investors' judgments. Specifically, I examine two issues raised concerning IAS 19 Employee Benefits. The first is to examine whether there are differences in nonprofessional investors' judgments when individual components of a complex item (defined pension cost) are disaggregated across a financial statement (the statement of comprehensive income) versus when individual components of a complex item are aggregated on the face of the same statement. Differences may arise since disaggregation across a statement provides information about how an item relates to different economic events and this information could help nonprofessional investors to better interpret and use the information in judgments. A second objective is to examine whether increasing the complexity of an already complex item affects the usefulness of information. I find that nonprofessional investors weigh higher levels of item complexity in certain judgments. Additionally, I find that when a complex item (defined pension cost) is disaggregated across a financial statement (the statement of comprehensive income) nonprofessional investors are able to acquire more information about the item and are able to more accurately understand the function of the item. This, in turn, helps the nonprofessional investors decide whether the information is useful in certain judgments.

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

Bakgrund: Det rådande pensionssystemet i Sverige består av sex så kallade AP-fonder. Genom åren har pensionssystemet flertalet gånger kritiserats för dess låga avkastning. Problem: Vår huvudfråga är att jämföra AP-fondernas risk och avkastning med aktiemarknaden som helhet, detta ska ske med hjälp av två jämförelseindex: MSCI World och SIXRX. Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att jämföra de fyra första AP-fondernas risk och avkastning med aktiemarknaden som helhet under åren 2002-2010. Metod: Vi har använt oss av en kvantitativ metod, genom att samla in information från AP-fondernas årsredovisningar och hemsidor. Vi har samlat in historisk data, som vi sedan har bearbetat och analyserat. Slutsats: De studerade AP-fonderna har presterat sämre än aktiemarknaden. / Background: The current pension system in Sweden consists of six so called AP-funds. Throughout the years the pension system has been criticized for its low return. Problem: We will compare the pension funds’ risk and return with the rest of the stock market as a whole. This will be done by the aid of two comparison registers: MSCI World and SIXRX. Purpose: Our purpose with the essay is to compare the pension funds in the Swedish pension system, their risk and return, with the share market as a whole. Method: We have used a quantitative method, by gathering information from the annual reports and relevant websites. We have also gathered historical data, which has been processed and analyzed. Conclusion: The studied pension funds have achieved lower results than the stock market market.