Pensions: More Information, Less Ideology

Tito Boeri holds a Ph.D. in Economics from New York University; he has been senior economist at the OECD from 1987 to 1996. Currently he is Professor of Economics at Bocconi University, Milan. Axel Börsch-Supan is Director of the Mannheim Research Institute for the Economics of Aging. He received a Ph.D. from MIT and taught at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government before he moved back to Germany. Agar Brugiavini is Professor of Economics at the University of `Ca'Foscari' of Venice, Italy. She obtained a Ph.D. in Economics at the London School of Economics, United Kingdom and was recently awarded a Fulbright Fellowship at Northwestern University, USA. Richard Disney is Professor of Economics at the University of Nottingham, a Research Fellow of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, London, and a Director of Axia Economics. He has acted as a consultant to OECD and the World Bank. Arie Kapteyn is a senior economist at RAND. Before that he was the director of CentER at Tilburg University and professor of economics. Franco Peracchi (Ph.D., Princeton University, 1987) is a Professor of Econometrics at Tor Vergata University in Rome.

1. Introduction.- 2. How Accurate Are Demographic Projections Used in Forecasting Pension Expenditure?.- 3. Early retirement: Reasons and Consequences.- 4. OECD Experience with Projecting Age-Related Expenditure.- 5. Population ageing and the Sustainability of Public Finance in EMU.- 6. How Should we Measure pension Liabilities in EU Countries?.- 7. What We Know and We do not Know about the Willingness to Provide Self-financed Old-Age Insurance.- 8. Health and Social Welfare Implications of an Ageing Population: What Are the Uncertainties?.- 9. Aging in Europe: What Can We Learn from the Europanel?.- 10. The Appeal to Prodi.