Why Saving on a Regular Basis Might Be Wise

Why Saving on a Regular Basis may be Wise!

Allianz International Pension Papers

No 2/2012

2

Masthead

Publisher Allianz SEKoeniginstrasse 2880802 Munich, GermanyPhone: +49 89 3800-0Fax: +49 89 3800-3425www.allianz.com

AuthorDr. Kathrin Nies, EconomistInternational Pensions [email protected]+49 89 12 20 70

EditorMarilee Williams

Layoutvolk:art51 GmbH, Munich

Closing Date20.03.2012

These assessments are, as always, subject to the disclaimer provided below.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

The statements contained herein may include statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements that are based on management’s current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. In addition to statements which are forward-looking by reason of context, the words “may”, “will”, “should”, “expects”, “plans”, “intends”, “anticipates”, “believes”, “estimates”, “predicts”, “potential”, or “continue” and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements. Actual results, performance or events may differ materially from those in such statements due to, without limitation, (i) general economic conditions, including in particular economic conditions in the Allianz Group’s core business and core markets, (ii) performance of financial markets, including emerging markets, and including market volatility, liquidity and credit events (iii) the frequency and severity of insured loss events, including from natural catastrophes and including the development of loss expenses, (iv) mortality and morbidity levels and trends, (v) persistency levels, (vi) the extent of credit defaults, (vii) interest rate levels, (viii) currency exchange rates including the Euro/U.S. Dollar exchange rate, (ix) changing levels of competition, (x) changes in laws and regulations, including monetary convergence and the European Monetary Union, (xi) changes in the policies of central banks and / or foreign governments, (xii) the impact of acquisitions, including related integration issues, (xiii) reorganization measures, and (xiv) general competitive factors, in each case on a local, regional, national and / or global basis. Many of these factors may be more likely to occur, or more pro- nounced, as a result of terrorist activities and their consequences. The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement.

No duty to update

The company assumes no obligation to update any information contained herein.

CoNteNtS

03 executive Summary: Retirement Planning Seems to be Worth the effort

04 Retirement Planning Results in Greater Wealth

05 Data and Descriptive Results

06 Retirement-planning satisfaction according to socio-economic characteristics09 Retirement-planning satisfaction according to savings-related characteristics

12 Marginal Impacts on Retirement Planning Satisfaction

15 Conclusion

16 References

17 Recent Publications

3

Allianz International Pension Papers No. 2|2012

The first baby boomers are now retiring in the United States. Most of them will not be able to live on social security alone. Average earners in the United States receive about half of their annual lifetime income as a public pension. Therefore, they are heavily dependent on their private retirement savings. Due to demographic changes, future generations are likely to face even lower retirement income from public pensions and will therefore depend more on private retirement income.1 Consequently, they can now learn from the saving experiences of the retiring baby-boomer generation.

Previous research has found that people who do some kind of retirement plan-ning accumulate more wealth than those who do not. Furthermore, planners who make the effort of calculating their future needs and resulting required savings rate, and planners who use rules of thumb statistically end up with the same amount of wealth. Looking at a dataset from retired affluent Americans who are between 50 and 69 years old, we investigate which type of saver, regular and/or irregular, is most satisfied with his retirement planning. Our regression analysis suggests that people who save regularly for retirement are significantly happier with their retirement planning than those who do not, else equal. A word of caution: We do not look at people older than 69 who have been living on their savings a little bit longer and may have a different view.

Executive Summary:Retirement Planning Seems to be Worth the Effort

1 Allianz Global Investors, 2011: Demography Series 1-3

4

2 Allianz Global Investors, 2011: Putting the Retirement Pieces together: Strategies of the affluent 50+ Generation in the United States, International Pension Papers 01/2011

When asked in hindsight, many retirees believe they made mistakes in their retirement planning. The most often-quoted reason for this is that they started to save too late and invested too riskily.2 The natural follow-up question is: How can this be avoided? Annamaria Lusardi and Olivia S. Mitchell analyzed the relationship between retirement planning and total net worth in the United States and found that households reporting to have done some retirement planning are already much better off in terms of their net worth than equivalent households reporting to have done hardly any planning. Furthermore, they found that political and financial literacy positively affects the probability of planning for retirement. Based on US citizens, Johannes Binswanger and Katherine G. Carman extended this analysis. They distinguished three retirement planning types:

• An actual planner: one who tries to calculate how much is needed in retirement, possibly based on a few future scenarios;

• A rule-of-thumb planner: one who regularly saves an absolute amount or a percentage of income; and

• Someone who does not have a savings rule.

Of course, the first type of planner requires much more time and effort for his planning than the second; the last needs the least amount of time and effort. In their analysis, Binswanger and Carman succeeded in not only showing that the first two types, the actual and rule-of-thumb planners, accumulate significantly more retirement wealth than the third type without a savings rule. In addition, there seems to be little difference between the retirement wealth of an actual planner and a rule-of-thumb planner. This implies that saving for retirement does not have to be so expensive (i.e., actual planning); instead, using rules of thumb statistically lead to the same outcomes.

It is unclear, however, whether a person A who accumulates, say, 100 units of retirement wealth has saved ‘better’ than a person B with 80 units of retirement wealth. Person A may have invested less in children’s education, which may not be optimal. Maximizing retirement wealth therefore does not necessarily maximize happiness. A complement to the retirement wealth analysis is, then, the analysis of satisfaction with retirement planning. It gives us a hint at whether people were able to spread their savings over their life course and are content with their retirement wealth now. In line with the life-cycle theory and assuming that people are forward-looking rational agents, it implies that a person manages to smooth his consumption and savings path over the life course, which makes him happy. In practice, people are often not forward-looking and may not realize that they may outlive their assets if they live “too” long. Bearing this fallacy in mind, we investigate which factors increase retirement-planning satisfaction, using a relatively young sample of retirees.

Retirement Planning Results in Greater Wealth

5


On average, retirees are more satisfied with their retirement planning than people who are still working or who are part-time retired, 1.59 versus 1.93 and 1.87, respectively. Workers’ and part-time retirees’ satisfaction with retirement planning is statistically indistinguishable. There are two immediate reasons for the higher satisfaction of retirees versus non-retirees, the first being uncertainty. These non-retirees are not sure whether their accumulated savings will last them through retirement in the manner they are expecting. As people are typically risk averse, they may perceive their situation to be worse under uncertainty than under cer-tainty. Reason number two may be self-selection. Only those people who achieve a certain planning satisfaction will decide to retire; otherwise, they continue working (and saving) until they believe they have enough. Our aim is to find the factors that help to increase retirement-planning satisfaction in order to give today’s workers some practical guidance about what to do today to be satisfied during retirement tomorrow. We therefore focus on the retirees in our sample who can look back at their savings rules and judge their level of satisfaction with their retirement planning up to their current age.

Data and Descriptive Results

6

Retirement-planning satisfaction according to socio-economic characteristics Table 1 describes this subsample of 580 retirees according to their level of education and accumulated wealth. It gives us a first indication of which factors positively affect retirement-planning satisfaction. Satisfaction is measured on a scale from 1 (very satisfied) to 5 (very dissatisfied).

The better people are educated, the larger their human capital because they can take more challenging and responsible jobs in the labor market. Consequently, they have a higher earnings potential. Among the retirees who are beyond their earnings phase, it gives us a hint of how much they have earned while in the labor force. The standard life-cycle theory tells us that we should save relative to our income. People earning less should save less than people who earn more. This is because the higher earners also consume more and will still do so in retirement. Especially for this affluent group of people, where everyone should have no difficulties satisfying basic needs, this should hold true. Consequently, if we treat education as a proxy for income, there is no reason why retirement-planning satisfaction should vary across education categories. However, if looking at education for what it is – an indicator for how much we have learned – we can expect more-educated individuals to make smarter choices. Whether smarter choices also result in higher satisfaction with retirement planning is an empirical

Box 1: Description of the dataset

We use a US dataset of 1,506 affluent (more than $ 250,000 in investable assets) individuals who are older than 50. The survey was conducted in 2010 by Allianz Global Investors AG and TNS Infratest. We know the following socio- economic characteristics: age, education, employment status (working, retired, part-time retired) and net worth. Age is recorded in categories 1 (50 – 54) to 4 (65 – 69). Originally, there were 10 education categories, but we recoded them into categories of the International Standard of Classification for Education (ISCED). Net worth is asked on a household level and also recorded in categories. We do not know their health status. Furthermore, people indicate whether they save regularly, irregularly or do not have a savings rule at all, and whether they believe they made errors in saving for retirement (yes / no). Given their answers to a knowledge question about inflation and annuities, we can check how financially literate they are. They also indicate how satisfied they are with their retirement planning on a scale from 1 (very satisfied) to 5 (very dissatisfied).

7


Source: own calculations

table 1: Satisfaction with retirement planning depending on education and wealth

Mean satisfaction Percentage in sample

education

Middle Education 1.50 > 0 %

Secondary School 1.72 5 %

Vocational Certificate 1.66 54 %

Bachelor / Master 1.54 36 %

Doctorate 1.19 5 %

Wealth

< $ 250,000 2.05 3 %

[$ 250,000; $ 500,000) 1.96 10 %

[$ 500,000; $ 750,000) 1.79 16 %

[$ 750,000; $ 1,000,000) 1.49 17 %

[$ 1,000,000; $ 1,500,000) 1.60 19 %

[$ 1,500,000; $ 2,000,000) 1.50 13 %

[$ 2,000,000; $ 3,000,000) 1.29 10 %

[$ 3,000,000; $ 4,000,000) 1.45 6 %

> $ 4,000,000 1.44 6 %

question. Ignoring the small percentage of people in the “middle education” category, we observe increasing satisfaction levels with education, though only the highest group is significantly more satisfied than the other ones.

Table 1 also shows that our sample is quite wealthy, with only 3 % of the retirees having less than $ 250,000 in net worth. For this relatively rich group of people, private wealth is very important in retirement because their replacement rates from state pensions are comparatively low. In order to maintain their standard of living, they have to save a lot on top of the state provision. The satisfaction with retirement planning generally improves across the wealth categories, although

8

less clearly across the largest categories. This is in line with our expectations. A person who has done some retirement planning can allocate his resources more efficiently, accumulate more wealth and be satisfied with it. Once a certain wealth level is crossed, however, one unit of additional income does not make such a big difference anymore. Imagine a frequently unemployed person who has hardly any wealth – say 100 units – and a permanently employed person who owns about 1,000 units. If you give 50 extra units both to the frequently unemployed and the permanently employed person, the former is going to be happier with the increase than the permanently employed person would be. Given our sample selection, all individuals in the sample belong to the affluent group and the effect of an additional unit of wealth should be comparatively low.

9


3

where i is the real interest rate, n the number of payments per year(12) and E(y) the expected number of years the payment will be paid out.

4 OECD (2011)

table 2: Satisfied with retirement planning and believe to have made errors in planning

Satisfaction with retirement planning

Very satisfied 31 % 58 % 56 %

Somewhat satisfied 52 % 34 % 34 %

Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 65 % 11 % 5 %

Somewhat dissatisfied 76 % 17 % 4 %

Very dissatisfied 100 % 0 % 1 %


Retirement planning satisfaction according to savings-related characteristics Table 2 indicates that 56 % of the people in this sample of retirees are very satisfied with their retirement planning. It does not come as a surprise to see more people believe they have made mistakes in their retirement planning among the dissatisfied people than among the satisfied people. This percentage monotonically increases from the very satisfied to the very dissatisfied. Subjective impressions are thus in line.

The survey also included two knowledge questions about inflation and annuities. First, people were asked to indicate how much a life-long annuity that pays $ 1,000 as of age 65 would cost: $ 65,000, $ 115,000, $ 165,000, $ 215,000 or $ 265,000. They could also say they did not know. The formula to calculate an annuity is quite complicated and depends on several parameters whose values are not given.3 Assuming a real interest rate of 2.5 % and a life expectancy of 16.8 4 at age 65, the annuity costs $ 164,480. Thus, option three is correct. Secondly, people were asked to indicate how much $ 1,000 would be worth in real terms in 20 years, assuming 2 % inflation: $ 1,000, $ 980, $ 820, $ 670 or $ 550. They could also indicate that they did not know. The correct answer is $ 1,000 x (1–0.02)20 = $ 667.61, thus option 4. The inflation question is much easier to answer than the annuity question because it only depends on three given parameters and a relatively easy formula. One can

1 – 1

(1 + i / n)nE(y)

P = 1000 i /n

10


Mean Satisfaction Percentage in Sample

Correct knowledge questions

Among them: don’t know

0 1.56 68 %

0 1.53 40 %

1 1.59 29 %

2 1.57 31 %

1 (inflation) 1.71 21 %

1 (annuity) 1.63 8 %

2 1.60 3 %

Savings behavior

regular and irregular 1.44 28 %

regular but not irregular 1.63 40 %

irregular but not regular 1.74 13 %

no savings rule 1.66 19 %

table 3: Satisfaction with retirement planning depending on financial knowledge and savings behavior

argue about the necessity to be able to calculate the price of an annuity or the price of inflation accurately for financial decision making. It may be sufficient to be aware of the influencing factors and their dynamics in order to make smart financial decisions. Also, not everyone may have had a calculator at hand. In the upper half of Table 3, we distinguish the retirement-planning satisfaction of people who answered both questions correctly, who answered the annuity question correctly, who answered the inflation question correctly and who did not answer any correctly.

5 Allianz Global Investors, 2011: Putting the Retirement Pieces together: Strategies of the affluent 50+ Generation in the United States. International Pension Papers 01/2011

11


Interestingly, people without any correct answers feel best prepared; and these are 68 % of the people. They can be split up into those who do not have a correct answer because they admit they do not know (40 % of the 68 %) and those who falsely thought they knew (60 % of the 68 %). However, there is no statistical difference between these subgroups with respect to the degree of satisfaction with retirement planning. The rest is as expected; among those who do know something, those who answered both knowledge questions correctly feel best, followed by those who answered the annuity question correctly and those who got the inflation question right. Only the difference in retirement-planning satisfaction between the people with zero correct answers and those with only the correct inflation answer is statistically significant (at a 10 % significance level). The results seem to suggest that it is good to either not be able to answer the financial knowledge questions at all or to be able to answer them perfectly. However, given the peculiarities of the questions, we should not over-emphasize the descriptive results.

We can distinguish three saving types: a regular saver, an irregular saver and someone for whom neither applies. Regular saving can imply putting a certain dollar amount or a certain fraction of income aside at regular intervals. Regular and irregular saving are not mutually exclusive. A person can save regularly as well as irregularly. The bottom half of Table 3 summarizes the satisfaction with retirement planning depending on people’s savings behavior. Most of the people save regularly, but not irregularly. This is followed by those who save regularly as well as irregularly and those that do not have a savings rule. The fewest people save only irregularly. There is a positive order of satisfaction from saving regularly and irregularly to irregularly, but not regularly, where the former seem to be doing best in terms of retirement-planning satisfaction. This regularity is inter- rupted by those who do not have a savings rule. Only the regular and irregular savings type’s retirement-planning satisfaction is statistically different from that of the others (at a 1 % significance level). People who do not have any savings rule may simply be people who do not care.5

The following regression analysis will tell us whether the separate bivariate relationships still hold once we correct for all variables.

12

We estimate the marginal effects of the factors presented above on satisfaction with retirement planning. This allows us to understand how important each of these factors is for retirement planning, while controlling for the other effects. The regression specification can be found in Box 2.

Table 4 below summarizes the regression results. All variables together explain about 10 % of the variation in satisfaction with retirement planning and are jointly significant in determining the level of satisfaction (log-likelihood ratio = 125.01). Among the socio-demographic characteristics, the age category, gender and being married do not have a significant impact on satisfaction with retirement planning (not shown in table); individuals with a doctorate have a 27 % higher chance of ending up very satisfied with their retirement planning compared to the reference group of people with secondary education. The low t-ratios indicate that the effect of the knowledge-related questions is statistically not distinguish-able from zero. Previous studies around retirement planning found financial literacy to be an important determinant for wealth accumulation and savings behavior (cf. Annamaria Lusardi and Olivia S. Mitchell). This discrepancy leads us to the suspicion that the knowledge questions asked are too specific to capture an individual’s degree of financial intuition or knowledge.

Marginal Impacts on Retirement Planning Satisfaction

Box 2: Regression specification

We run an ordered probit regression of retirement planning satisfaction on:• a constant• age categories (1 to 4)

• a dummy that equals 1 in case of females

• a dummy that equals 1 in case a person is married

• education dummies ISCED categories 4 to 6

• the natural logarithm of net worth within the household. We use the natural logarithm in order to account for the decreasing impact of wealth on satisfaction as the wealth level increases.

• a dummy that equals 1 in case a person did his retirement planning without any advisor to control for a possible systematic difference between people who take and who do not take advice.

• a dummy that equals 1 in case a person believes to have made mistakes in his retirement planning

• the number of correct answers to the knowledge questions

• the number of ‘do not know’ to the knowledge questions

• a dummy that equals 1 in case a person saves regularly and irregularly

• a dummy that equals 1 in case a person saves regularly, but not irregularly

• a dummy that equals 1 in case a person saves irregularly, but not regularly

13


As expected, the net worth affects satisfaction with retirement planning positively. Here, a 10 % increase in wealth leads to a 0.009 (approximately 0.9 %) increase in chance of being very satisfied with retirement planning. If we have two almost identical individuals, the only difference being that one owns the median amount of net worth ($ 1,250,000) and the other one about $ 125,000 more, the more affluent one has a 0.9 % higher chance of being very satisfied with his retirement planning than the other one. Though not very large, this positive impact is the second-most significant effect in our regression. Thus, even in this relatively selective sample, there is positive wealth effect.

Our regression results indicate that people who save regularly as well as irregularly have a 16 % higher chance of being very satisfied with their retirement planning.

table 4: Marginal effects from ordered probit regression

Variable Marginal effect t-ratio

Education: Vocational certificate (isced = 4) – 0.077 – 0.97

Education: Bachelors / Masters (isced = 5) – 0.028 – 0.33

Education: Doctorate (isced = 6) 0.269 2.09

Nr of correct answers (knowledge) – 0.025 – 1.05

Don’t know answer (knowledge) 0.005 0.22

Saving regularly and irregularly 0.159 3.05

Saving regularly but not irregularly 0.084 1.75

Saving irregularly but not regularly – 0.033 – 0.54

Believe to have made mistakes (subjective) – 0.284 – 9.44

others

N = 580; pseudo R2 = 0.107

Note: The table contains the marginal effects, i.e., the probability of being very satisfied with retirement planning due to each variable holding the other

variables constant as well as the respective t-ratios. The latter indicates the degree of certainty that the marginal effect is not zero (if larger than 2.56, 1 %;

1.96, 5 %; and 1.64, 10 %). It is computed using the Delta Method. Note that the ISCED comparison group is ‘middle and secondary’ education and the savings

type comparison group is ‘no savings rule’. Source: own calculations

14

For those who save regularly, but not irregularly, that probability amounts to about 8 %. Someone, however, who saves only irregularly is not more satisfied than someone without a savings rule. The latter provides the reference group. Contrary to the first descriptive results, the type without a savings rule feels worse about his retirement preparation once we isolate the effect from the others. Since only the saver types that include regular savings are significantly positive, it seems essential to save regularly in order to be satisfied with one’s retirement planning ex post. This leads to a higher success in planning satisfaction than saving irregularly.

Lastly, we find a statistically significant effect from people believing they have made mistakes in planning. Someone who believes to have made mistakes in his retirement planning is 29 % less likely to be very satisfied with his retirement preparation. It is the largest marginal effect of all variables.

15


15

The baby-boomers who are now retiring in the United States are one of the first groups of people who – next to public pension income – depend on their private savings. Many of them believe they have made mistakes. Since future generations will depend even more on private savings, it is helpful to analyze which kind of retiree is now content with his retirement planning ex post.

We built on research from Lusardi and Mitchell, and Binswanger and Carman. The first authors demonstrated that retirement planning substantially increases retirement wealth, while the second showed that rule-of-thumb planning and serious retirement planning (the latter being much more costly) lead to statisti-cally indistinguishable outcomes in terms of net wealth.

Since it is not necessarily best to maximize retirement wealth, we look at how content retirees are with their retirement planning ex post. Our sample of retirees is comparatively rich and young. But even among this group of people, we find a significant effect of net worth and saving type on the satisfaction with retire-ment planning. A 10 % increase in net worth leads to an almost 0.9 % increase in the probability of being very satisfied with retirement planning. Among the distinguished savings types, only regular, regular and irregular, only irregular and no savings rule, we find significant differences. While the bivariate descriptive results imply that the no-savings rule type as similarly content as the other types, the regression results are able to isolate the effects, clearly showing that this type does feel worse than the regular saving types. The largest effect here is an approximate 16 % increase in the chance of being very satisfied with retirement planning of the regular and irregular savers in comparison to the no-saving rules type. “Only” saving regularly, but not irregularly, increases this chance by 8 %. Therefore, it seems to pay off to save regularly if you want to be satisfied with your retirement planning as a retiree.

Conclusion

16

References

Allianz Global Investors, 2011: Demographic Turning Point (1). Analysis and Trends

Allianz Global Investors, 2011: Pension Systems in a Demographic Transition (2). Analysis and Trends

Allianz Global Investors, 2011: Putting the Retirement Pieces Together: Strategies of the affluent 50+ Generation in the United States. International Pension Papers 01/2011

Allianz Global Investors, 2011: The Global Pension Atlas 2011, Project M Publication

Allianz Global Investors, 2011: Paradigm Lost. Project M, 7

Binswanger, Johannes and Carman, Katherine G., 2009: How real people make long-term decisions: The case of retirement preparation, Center Discussion Paper No 2009-72

Lusardi, Annamaria and Mitchell, Oliva S., 2007: Baby-boomer retirement security: The roles of planning, financial literacy, and housing wealth. Journal of Monetary Economics, 54

OECD, 2011: Pensions at a Glance 2011: Retirement Income Systems in OECD and G20 Countries

17


Recent Publications

International Pension Papers

Wanted: Flexibility in Retirement Entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2012Design Retirement Attitudes and Financial Strategies of the Affluent 50+Generation in Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2011 2011 Pension Sustainability Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2011Pensions in Turkey – A Race against Informality and Low Retirement Ages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2011Fiduciary Management: Meeting Pensions Challenges in Europe – Results of an Expert Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2011Putting the Retirement Pieces Together: Strategies of the Affluent 50+ Generation in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2011Better Prepared for Retirement – Europe or the United States? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2010The Global Crunch and Its Long-term Impact on US Retirement Investing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2010On the Rise Again – Global Retirement Assets in 2020 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2010 Real Retirement Income: The Impact of Inflation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2010Doing Good by Investing Well? Pension Funds and Socially Responsible Investment: Results of an Expert Survey . . . . . . . 2010Pension Sustainability Index 2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2009Defining the Direction of Defined Contribution in Europe: Results of an Expert Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2009Retirement at Risk II – Challenges for US Baby Boomers Approaching Retirement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2009How the Financial Crisis Affects Pension Funds: What Analysts Expect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2009Private Household Financial Assets: The Golden Days of the Past are a Long Way Off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2009Investment Regulations and Defined Contribution Pensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2009Retirement at Risk: The US Pension System in Transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2009Funded Pensions in Western Europe 2008 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2009

International Pension Issues

Germany – Slight increase in gross financial assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2012UK – on course for an innovative pension system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2011Focus: Germany – Financial assets continued to rise in 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2011Savings in Asia – The macro and the micro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2010Pension Sustainability Index – New Zealand included . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2010Demographics in Focus II – Ageing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2010Financial Assets of Households in Germany on the Rise Again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2010Demographics in focus I – Population growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2009Pension Funds and the Financial Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2009Western Europe: Fiscal Pressures – Ageing costs still on the horizon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2009United States – Severe setback in financial and retirement assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2009Germany – Fall in financial assets of private households . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2009

http://publications.allianzam.com

Economy & Finance

Why Saving on a Regular Basis Might Be Wise