A Cohort-Specific Collar Approach to Retirement Security

Abstract

This paper develops a pension product that is explicit about the pre-established goals that are aimed for. The proposed product presents a trade-off that is transparent in terms of required contributions, the income level targeted and guarantees offered. Depending on participants' preferences, individualized investment plans are constructed that focus on achieving the desired standard of living in retirement with a likelihood that is ex-ante defined. In addition, the event of falling short of the goal is managed. To address the risk of failure to achieve the desired income target, guaranteed income is offered to safeguard a minimum standard of living in retirement. Given the contribution rate participants can afford to save, the set of product parameters has to be chosen. Apart from choosing the desired and guaranteed level of income, participants are asked to determine the likelihood of realizing the desired benefit and the likelihood of ending up with the guarantee. The proposed approach is compared to life cycle strategies more commonly executed in the pension industry. The results indicate that the collar approach outperforms the evaluated life cycle strategies in terms of the desired replacement rate that can be offered given the replacement rate in adverse scenarios. Moreover, the approach offers a larger probability of realizing the desired benefit given a predefined level of downside risk.