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Welcome

Pensions are a major public policy issue in most OECD countries and it is not difficult to understand why. In most countries, pensions represent a large fraction of government fiscal obligations, a burden which is forecasted to increase yet further as the "baby boom" generation approaches retirement. At the same time, private pensions are a major component of financial markets (for example, in the UK the value of pension funds is about 2/3 of GDP) and an important contributor to savings, investment and economic growth.


The Pensions Institute (PI) is the first and only U.K. academic research centre focused entirely on pensions research. The purpose of this centre is to serve as a clearinghouse for information on pensions, with particular emphasis on the U.K. system, and to publicize PI research and activities.

Risk Sharing in Defined Contribution Pension Schemes Conference, University of Exeter

The Department for Work and Pensions, University of Exeter Business School and Netspar are jointly sponsoring a research conference on risk sharing in defined contribution pension schemes, to be held at the University of Exeter on Thursday 7 and Friday 8 January 2010.

Longevity 6: The Sixth International Longevity Risk and Capital Markets Solutions Conference will be held in Sydney, Australia on Thursday 9 and Friday 10 September, 2010.

LifeMetrics Longevity Index launched

On 13 March 2007, JPMorgan launched the LifeMetrics Index, an international index designed to benchmark and trade longevity risk. Professor David Blake, the Director of the Pensions Institute, is the Co-Founder of the LifeMetrics Index. The Pensions Institute is a member of the International Advisory Committee governing the index. www.lifemetrics.com

New research on longevity risk released by the Pensions Institute on Monday 26 November 2007

"Apocalyptic demography? Putting longevity risk in perspective" which was published on 29 April 2008 has been funded by, and produced in association with, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), the only international accountancy body with a sole focus on business. This report and checklist allows finance directors to put longevity risk in perspective by focusing on issues such as current life expectancy, projected life expectancy and the types of longevity risk to which their organisation may be susceptible. It will also help them when discussing, with their actuary, the basis of mortality assumptions used in estimating their scheme liabilities.

"And death shall have no dominion: Life settlements and the ethics of profiting from mortality" was published on Monday 7 July 2008. The report is the first major independent study of the ethics of investing in US life settlements (also known as traded life policies or TLPs). It analyses the potential benefits of this secondary market for policyholders wishing to sell and for investors seeking to diversify risk but it also raises concerns over current inconsistencies in the regulation of the market. It concludes that there would appear to be no particular ethical issues associated with investing in this asset class that distinguish it from well-established pensions and life market investments, which are also based on mortality projections, provided that products and processes are fully transparent to all parties, including the original policyholder and the end investor, and provided that the privacy of the policyholder is safeguarded.

Two new books from the Director of the Pensions Institute

Pensions - An International Journal