New Zealand: financing retirement: lessons from the New Zealand Way on necessary reforms

In at least some respects, the pensions "problem" is a reflection of a country's profile and history. To set this paper in perspective, Table 1 shows New Zealand at a glance. It both explains New Zealand and summarises what this paper defines as the "New Zealand Way" (definitions on page 3). [insurt Table 1] In summary, New Zealand is relatively young (for a developed country); the cost to taxpayers of pensions (both public and private) is relatively low and, although that cost is expected to about double in the next 45 years, is less than what many developed countries pay now in total (including the cost of tax incentives for private provision). New Zealanders are at present neither forced, nor encouraged through tax incentives, to save privately for retirement.

Tax Competition: Harmful to Whom?

The aim of this paper is to examine the theory that it is both desirable and feasible to prevent less-developed countries from operating preferential tax regimes (that is, offering tax incentives) as a means of attracting foreign investment

Tax Competition: Harmful to Whom?

The aim of this paper is to examine the theory that it is both desirable and feasible to prevent less-developed countries from operating preferential tax regimes (that is, offering tax incentives) as a means of attracting foreign investment

Now we are six: lessons from New Zealand’s KiwiSaver

New Zealand’s KiwiSaver was introduced on 1 July 2007. New Zealand’s success with the ‘soft compulsion’ of automatic enrolment has been and is continuing to be an influence in the design of opt-out schemes in the UK and Ireland. While there have been numerous changes to KiwiSaver as outlined in this paper, six years on, the retirement saving scheme appears well accepted by the public and membership has exceeded most expectations. New Zealand’s experience suggests that auto-enrolment and large incentives to entice people to remain opted-in may ensure initial take-up is high. It also suggests the incentives may be reduced significantly ex post with little impact on membership. Core tax-funded KiwiSaver subsidies have been both substantially reduced and not indexed while membership has continued to grow strongly. Whether this auto-enrolment scheme, featuring generous provisions for withdrawals and contributions holidays, is sufficient to ensure that those who should be saving for their retirement are saving, and saving enough, is open to debate. If KiwiSaver is made compulsory, as some powerful lobbies propose, there are large complexities to resolve, including the future role of the universal state pension, New Zealand Superannuation. Lessons from KiwiSaver on what to avoid in the design of a national retirement saving scheme may include: opening it to children; offering housing subsidies; allowing too many providers and privileging some of these as ‘default providers’; ignoring the issue of decumulation; and obscure objectives. Advantages over previous work-based retirement saving schemes include the portability of KiwiSaver accounts facilitated by the IRD’s role as a clearing house. New Zealand has also limited regressivity in the design of its very modest tax incentives, but at a cost: many save just the minimum required to maximise the subsidies. The Working Paper surveys the first six years of KiwiSaver’s evolution to July 2013. In that time, the fundamental questions around its purpose and design have not been resolved. Is its purpose to enhance access to suitable wealth accumulation vehicles for those who have missed out on traditional work-based schemes? Or is it to reduce the pressures on the economy of an ageing population; or to solve the national saving problem? Will KiwiSavers in fact have more to spend during their retirement, or will they simply reduce other savings to compensate? In the long term, what are the implications for New Zealand’s overall pensions framework, and in particular the very successful universal state pension? As 2014 is an election year, political parties are positioning themselves on KiwiSaver policy. In the meantime there is strong international interest in New Zealand’s retirement saving scheme, with its unique features such as auto-enrolment. The Retirement Policy and Research Centre is pleased to publish KiwiSaver: Now we are six. It updates earlier working papers, including Working Paper 2010 KiwiSaver: lessons for Ireland. TheviewsinthisWorkingPaper’scommentaryarethoseoftheauthors

A nyugdíjpolitika megjavításáról

Nyugdíj – itt az ideje a felnövekedésnek. A The Economist című gazdasági lapban 2002. február 16-án ezzel a címmel jelent meg egy tanulmány a nyugdíjpolitika egy jól ismert megoldásával kapcsolatban. A szerző írásában ezzel a koncepcióval vitatkozik

Ageing populations, retirement incomes and public policy: what really matters

When setting public policies on retirement incomes, governments should focus on objectives they have a unique capacity to influence. Only governments can reliably eliminate poverty in old age, level the tax and regulatory playing fields for financial service providers/savers and gather impeccable, deep data. They can also help citizens to understand the things that really matter to individual saving decisions. Governments should avoid trying to influence or direct private provision for retirement by tax breaks or compulsion (‘hard’ or ‘soft’). That those common interventions seem not to work is only one of their many shortcomings. Then, citizens and employers should make their own decisions about financial provision for retirement

Electron Drift Velocities In Gas Mixtures Of He, N2, And CO 2

An electron swarm experiment has been used to obtain electron drift velocities in the He:CO2:N2 mixtures 0:1:1, 3:1:2, and 3:1:1. The E/N range of 3 to 57 Td was studied with total gas pressure varied from 50 to 200 Torr. These particular mixtures have not been previously studied experimentally. Good agreement is observed between theoretical calculations and experimental data

Free-breathing 3D whole-heart joint T₁/T₂ mapping and water/fat imaging at 0.55 T

Purpose: To develop and validate a highly efficient motion compensated free-breathing isotropic resolution 3D whole-heart joint T 1/T 2 mapping sequence with anatomical water/fat imaging at 0.55 T. Methods: The proposed sequence takes advantage of shorter T 1 at 0.55 T to acquire three interleaved water/fat volumes with inversion-recovery preparation, no preparation, and T 2 preparation, respectively. Image navigators were used to facilitate nonrigid motion-compensated image reconstruction. T 1 and T 2 maps were jointly calculated by a dictionary matching method. Validations were performed with simulation, phantom, and in vivo experiments on 10 healthy volunteers and 1 patient. The performance of the proposed sequence was compared with conventional 2D mapping sequences including modified Look-Locker inversion recovery and T 2-prepared balanced steady-SSFP sequence. Results: The proposed sequence has a good T 1 and T 2 encoding sensitivity in simulation, and excellent agreement with spin-echo reference T 1 and T 2 values was observed in a standardized T 1/T 2 phantom (R 2 = 0.99). In vivo experiments provided good-quality co-registered 3D whole-heart T 1 and T 2 maps with 2-mm isotropic resolution in a short scan time of about 7 min. For healthy volunteers, left-ventricle T 1 mean and SD measured by the proposed sequence were both comparable with those of modified Look-Locker inversion recovery (640 ± 35 vs. 630 ± 25 ms [p = 0.44] and 49.9 ± 9.3 vs. 54.4 ± 20.5 ms [p = 0.42]), whereas left-ventricle T 2 mean and SD measured by the proposed sequence were both slightly lower than those of T 2-prepared balanced SSFP (53.8 ± 5.5 vs. 58.6 ± 3.3 ms [p &lt; 0.01] and 5.2 ± 0.9 vs. 6.1 ± 0.8 ms [p = 0.03]). Myocardial T 1 and T 2 in the patient measured by the proposed sequence were in good agreement with conventional 2D sequences and late gadolinium enhancement. Conclusion: The proposed sequence simultaneously acquires 3D whole-heart T 1 and T 2 mapping with anatomical water/fat imaging at 0.55 T in a fast and efficient 7-min scan. Further investigation in patients with cardiovascular disease is now warranted.</p

Fusion products, Kostka polynomials, and fermionic characters of su(r+1)_k

Using a form factor approach, we define and compute the character of the fusion product of rectangular representations of \hat{su}(r+1). This character decomposes into a sum of characters of irreducible representations, but with q-dependent coefficients. We identify these coefficients as (generalized) Kostka polynomials. Using this result, we obtain a formula for the characters of arbitrary integrable highest-weight representations of \hat{su}(r+1) in terms of the fermionic characters of the rectangular highest weight representations.Comment: 21 pages; minor changes, typos correcte

Peridigm users' guide. V1.0.0.

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