Event at SHARE, Swiss House for Advanced Research and Education

Workshop on Retirement and Social Security

The Swiss Science and Technology Consulate in Boston (www.shareboston.org) and the World Demographic Association in St. Gallen/Switzerland are organizing an American-European workshop on Retirement and Social Security Systems within an Ageing Society on Monday, June 25, 2007, from 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm.

The participation on the workshop is by invitation only. But if you have a strong interest in the topic, please contact Remo Steinmetz for further information.

The idea of the workshop on Retirement and Social Security is to discuss the American and the European perspectives on three main topics:

Retirement: implications for social security in ageing societies
Pension challenges: from social security to privately managed schemes – risks and opportunities
Social security reform: marginal or fundamental change?

Program “Workshop on Retirement and Social Security”, June 25, 2007

12:00 noon Registration and Luncheon. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences Norton's Woods Conference Center, Cambridge MA

1:00pm Introductory Remarks

Christoph von Arb, Consul General, SHARE Boston

Prisca Boxler, World Demographic Association, Switzerland

1:15pm Retirement: implications for social security in ageing societies.

United States: Professor Dr. Joseph F. Quinn, Boston College.

Switzerland: Dr. Werner Nussbaum, Chairman, Pension Education Center and Member of the Pension Advisory Commission for the Swiss Federal Government

2:15pm Break

2:40pm Pension challenges: from social security to privately managed schemes – risks and opportunities.

United States: Stephen C. Goss, Chief Actuary, Social Security Administration.

Switzerland: Dr. Jaap Van Dam, Senior Manager for Pension Consulting, PricewaterhouseCoopers

United States: Dr. Mark J. Warshawsky, Director of Retirement Research, Watson Wyatt Worldwide

4:00pm Break

4:20pm Social security reform: marginal or fundamental change?

United States: Alice H. Wade, Deputy Chief Actuary, Social Security Administration.

Switzerland: Dr. Juerg Siegenthaler, Consulting Research Director, Institute for Socio-Financial Studies .

United States: Professor Dr. Yung-Ping “Bing” Chen, Professor and Frank J. Manning Eminent Scholar's Chair in Gerontology, John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies, University of Massachusetts Boston

6:00pm End of Workshop

6:45pm Dinner Reception. Residence of the Swiss Consul General in Lexington MA

The workshop is part of the ThinkSwiss program www.thinkswiss.org and co-organized by the World Demographic Association www.wdassociation.org.

Speakers:

Prisca Boxler, World Demographic Association, Switzerland

Yung-Ping Chen, Professor and Frank J. Manning Eminent Scholar's Chair in Gerontology, John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies, University of Massachusetts Boston

Jaap Van Dam, Senior Manager for Pension Consulting, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Switzerland Stephen C. Goss, Chief Actuary, Social Security Administration

Werner Nussbaum, Chairman, Pension Education Center and Member of the Pension Advisory Commission for the Swiss Federal Government

Joseph F. Quinn, Professor of economics and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Boston College

Dr. Juerg Siegenthaler, Consulting Research Director, Institute for Socio-Financial Studies

Christoph von Arb, Consul General and Director, SHARE Boston

Alice Wade, Deputy Chief Actuary, Social Security Administration

Mark J. Warshawsky, Director of Retirement Research, Watson Wyatt Worldwide

The following three main topics will be presented by speakers from Switzerland and the United States. The workshop is part of the ThinkSwiss program and co-organized by the World Demographic Association.

Retirement: implications for social security in ageing societies

In ageing societies, the original challenge is to provide adequate income to elder persons. Most of the developed countries set up social security programs when their populations were young enough, thereby providing an adequate retirement income to the majority of retirees. Although the coverage of social security is currently nearly universal in industrialized countries, the growing number of atypical employment patterns such as the currently witnessed adaptations of HR and hiring strategies of major employers within the US, as well as migrant workers are putting pressure on the notion of such universal coverage. Furthermore, as populations’ age, pension obligations are becoming more difficult to meet. Some economists warn that, if governments do not react, populations will be confronted with growing social security contributions as well as significantly reduced retirement benefits. Certain scholars also claim that these developments will negatively affect inflation and exchange rates. Can pension reforms ensure that the old age security systems will be financially sustainable in the long run? What are the conditions under which an adequate income for elder people can be provided?

Pension challenges: from social security to privately managed schemes – risks and opportunities

Ageing societies are putting substantial strain on (pay-as-you-go funded) state pensions, which, in turn has, increased the importance, and redefined the role, of private pensions. What are the opportunities and problems created by private pensions and what appropriate measures should governments be taking? Do private pension markets require regulatory legislation, regulatory authorities, tax deduction schemes, subsidies, consumer protection etc? Pension politics, this much is evident, changes with new policy instruments, new actors and new arenas of conflict. Does a regulatory welfare state emerge? To what extend does this new state have to regulate the activities of non-state providers rather than providing benefits and services itself as is done by the conventional redistributory welfare state?

Social security reform: marginal or fundamental change?

Much of the current political discussion has been prompted by concerns over the future solvency of social security systems. The basic issue is that shifting demographics, growing health care costs, and the extension of social security benefits in past decades are projected to cause future social security tax rates to increase substantially if current health and retirement income benefits formulas remain unchanged. Concerns over solvency have coincided with proposals for fundamental social security reform. These proposals attempt to address the issues of equity and efficiency in addition to the solvency issue. What are, in quantitative terms, the distributional effects of social security reform? Who wins and who loses from proposed reforms? What are the detailed effects? Furthermore, in addition to redistributing income across households, potential reform of social security systems distorts labor supply and demand decisions and changes insurance possibilities.

Downloads: