Pen­sion Eco­nom­ics

Course content

The course offers a broad account of the role of pension systems and policies for individual economic decisions as well as for macroeconomic outcomes including distributional implications.

The first part will introduce the modelling framework – overlapping generations models – for analyzing life-cycle decisions on consumption, savings and retirement. Different types of pension systems will be introduced to the model and the students will analyze the microeconomic and macroeconomic implications as well as welfare consequences of pension policies.

The second part will study pension systems from a practical perspective.

Students will get familiar with the institutional set-up of the Danish pension system, understand how it has evolved over recent decades and how it relates to pension systems in other countries on the Western hemisphere. They will study different types of pension schemes and the management of pension schemes seen from the perspective of pension funds. This part will also give an account of the empirical literature estimating and testing the theoretical implications of various pension schemes and changes in pension policies.