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Notwithstanding the terrible price the world has paid in the Coronavirus pandemic, the fact remains that longevity at older ages is likely to continue to rise in the medium and longer term. This volume explores how the private and public sectors can collaborate via public-private partnerships (PPPs) to develop new mechanisms to reduce older people's risk of outliving their assets in later life. As we show in this volume, PPPs typically involve shared government financing alongside private-sector partner expertise, management responsibility, and accountability. In addition to offering empirical evidence on examples where this is working well, our contributors provide case studies, discuss survey results, and examine a variety of different financial and insurance products to better meet the needs of the aging population. The volume will be informative to researchers, plan sponsors, students, and policymakers seeking to enhance retirement plan offerings.

"Publicly-held pools of assets have grown dramatically over the last several years, and they are playing an increasingly prominent role in cross-national investments. This paper examines how to better secure prudent and economically sound public fund management practices, focusing on ways to formulate and build a strong governance structure for managing the assets, how one might protect the assets from political interference, and what sensible investment policy might entail. We compare three distinct forms of public funds, namely foreign exchange reserve funds, sovereign wealth funds, and public pension funds, to highlight similarities and differences between these. We also explore how their management structure relates to governance practices and country-specific characteristics, drawing from the pension and corporate finance literature. Last, we discuss alternative means of managing public reserve funds in aging economies such as Japan, to help meet future social security liabilities in the face of rapid demographic aging"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site

"Prior literature on asset patterns among the elderly often overlooks housing wealth as a determinant of retiree wealth, particularly in the Japanese context. Yet releasing equity in housing may be a natural mechanism to boost consumption, reduce public pension liability, and mitigate the demand for long-term care facilities in Japan. Our study evaluates what might be needed to implement reverse mortgages (RMs) in this country. Policies could include exempting RMs from capital gains tax and transactions tax, along with mechanisms to make annuity income flows nontaxable, along with interest rate accruals for RMs. In addition, housing market reforms to enhance information flows would be needed, particularly regarding new and existing housing trades, which could permit the securitization of housing loans and lines of credit. Other improvements in capital markets could also help, including the establishment of reinsurance mechanisms to help lenders offer these reverse mortgages while having some protection against crossover risk. In the Japanese case, demand for RMs will be dampened by declining residential housing values as well as low interest rates and long life expectancies. Nevertheless, we conclude that RMs might be a good way to finance elderly consumption in Japan, particularly against the backdrop of governmental financial stringencies"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site