Why we started the Pensions Institute
Despite the tremendous importance of pensions and pension funds
to individuals, companies and governments, and despite widespread interest
within the academic community on specific issues related to pensions, there
are very few international centres for pension studies and before the Pensions
Institute was established in 1996, there was no academic centre exclusively
devoted to pensions in the UK.
The Mission and Objectives of the Pensions Institute
The mission of the Pensions Institute is to undertake or organize
high quality research in all fields related to pensions, to disseminate
the results of that research to both the academic and practitioner community,
to establish an international network of pension researchers from a variety
of disciplines, and to provide expert advice to the pensions industry and
government.
Specific objectives include:
1) Undertaking or organizing research in such fields as:
- Pension Microeconomics, dealing with the economics of individual
and corporate pension planning and retirement decisions. - Pension Fund Management and Performance, dealing with the
asset-liability management, investment management, and investment performance
of both occupational and personal pension schemes. - Pension Contingency Analysis and Valuation, dealing with
actuarial and insurance issues related to pension annuities and retirement. - Pension Law and Regulation, dealing with legal aspects
of pension schemes and pension fund management. - Pension Accounting, Taxation and Administration, dealing
with operational aspects of running pension schemes. - Marketing of private sector pension schemes, dealing with
the practice and ethics of marketing pension products. - Macroeconomics of Pensions, dealing with the consequences
of the size and maturity of pension funds on other sectors of the economy
(e.g.corporate, public and international sectors). - Public Policy, dealing with domestic and EU social policy
towards pension provision and other employee benefits in light of factors
such as the Social Chapter of the Maastrict Treaty and the demographic timebomb
in Europe and other countries.
2) Disseminating the results of the research by means of:
- Discussion Papers
- Publications in Academic and Practitioner Journals
- The Internet
- Seminars, workshops and conferences.
3) Providing expert advice on the results of this research
to the pensions industry and to government.
Research disseminated by the Pensions Institute may include
views on policy but the Pensions Institute itself takes no institutional policy positions.
The Pensions Institute was set up initially in 1996 by David Blake and Mike
Orszag at Birkbeck College. It moved to Cass Business School in January 2004.