Archive: Nicholas Barr

Cheerful senior man at home looking at his mail

The brief’s key findings are: The economic crisis has provided a ‘stress test’ for many pension systems. In Sweden, the crisis triggered an automatic ‘brake’ to restore financial balance and revealed two problems with the brake’s design: it can favor workers over retirees; and it can result in large shocks for retirees. In response, t…

Mature man is hired to handle outreach to senior adults

Abstract This article, based on two books (Barr and Diamond 2008, forthcoming), sets out a series of principles for pension design rooted in economic theory: pension systems have multiple objectives, analysis should consider the pension system as a whole, analysis should be framed in a second-best context, different systems share risks differently, and systems hav…