Retirement System Risk Management

• 1: Olivia S. Mitchell, Raimond Maurer, and J. Michael Orszag: Introduction: Implications of the New Regulatory Order for Retirement System Risk Management


• I. Global Risk Assessment for Pensions and Annuities


• 2: Peter A. Fisher: The New Insurance Supervisory Landscape: Implications for Insurance and Pensions


• 3: Raimond Maurer, Olivia S. Mitchell, Ralph Rogalla, and Ivonne Siegelin: Accounting-based Asset Return Smoothing in Participating Life Annuities: Implications for Annuitants, Insurers, and Policymakers


• 4: Joseph Busillo, Thomas Harvey, and Bryan Hoffman: Mark-to-Market Accounting for United States Corporate Pensions: Implementation and Impact


• 5: Karel Van Hulle: Risk Disclosure in the European Insurance Industry: Implications for Occupational Pension Funds


• 6: Brian Reid and Dan Waters: Pensions, Risk, and Global Systemically Important Financial Institutions


• II. Developments in Retirement Saving and Retirement Products


• 7: Asli Demirgüç-Kunt, Leora Klapper, and Georgios A. Panos: Determinants of Saving for Old Age around the World


• 8: Andrew G. Biggs: Retirement Replacement Rates: What and How


• 9: Catherine Donnelly, Montserrat Guillén, and Jens Perch Nielsen: Fundamentals of Cost and Risk that Matter to Pension Savers and Life Annuitants


• 10: Javier Alonso, Alfonso Arellano, and David Tuesta: Pension Fund Investment in Infrastructure and Global Financial Regulation

Dr. Olivia S. Mitchell is the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans Professor, Professor of Insurance and Risk Management and Business Economics and Public Policy, Executive Director of the Pension Research Council, and Director of the Boettner Center for Pensions and Retirement Research, all at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Mitchell's main interests are public and private pensions, insurance and risk management, financial literacy, and social insurance. She received her MA and PhD degrees in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her BA in Economics from Harvard University.


Raimond Maurer is the Chair of Investment, Portfolio Management, and Pension Finance at the Finance Department of the Goethe University Frankfurt. His research focuses on asset management, life-time portfolio choice, real estate, and pension finance. He serves in several professional capacities including the Union Real Estate Investment group, the Society of Actuaries (academic chairman of AFIR), the Association of Certified International Investment Analysts (academic director and member of the International Examination Committee). He earned his Habilitation, PhD, and Diploma in business administration from Mannheim University, and he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the State University of Finance and Economics of St. Petersburg.

Michael Orszag is Head of Research at Willis Towers Watson, a global actuarial consulting firm. His research interests include pensions, personnel economics, risk management, and insurance. He is a founding editor of the Journal of Pension Economics and Finance and co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Pensions and Retirement Income. He earned his PhD from the University of Michigan in economics and his AB from Princeton University in economics.

Overall, this book is very informative and easy to read. It is written such that people without prior knowledge of regulatory order can easily understand the related issues. It proposes a wide overview of the new regulations for the retirement system, in particular for North America and Europe This volume also presents an interesting sample of developments in retirement provision, which is an area of extensive research focus around the world. Through this edition, academics and practitioners discuss topics pertinent to risk management and pension design. I strongly recommend this book to readers of the Journal of Pension Economics and Finance. Héloïse Labit Hardy, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research