Research

The Way Out of the Pensions Quagmire


SUGGESTED

Economic Theory

A new and expanded edition of this popular IEA book

Markets and Morality

The moral case for the market economy

This book provides an analysis of the current problems of pension provision in the UK and a radical plan for reform.

https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/upldbook267pdf.pdf
In ‘The Way Out of the Pensions Quagmire’ Philip Booth and Deborah Cooper argue that the system of retirement income provision in the UK is so mired in complexity that nothing less than wholesale change is necessary. But change should not be limited to consideration of the shape of the state pension system or the framework in which private schemes operate: that would be to repeat the errors of the past.

The authors believe that state pensions should only be offered on a contributory basis – there should be no automatic right to a ‘citizen’s pension’, as has been proposed by some commentators. Attention should be also paid to the social security system to remove the perverse incentives of means testing. Anomalies and special treatment of favoured groups in the tax system should also be removed. ‘The Way Out of the Pensions Quagmire’ proposes a holistic approach to pension reform that takes proper account of the interaction between pensions, tax, social security and financial regulation.

2005, Research Monograph 60, ISBN 0 255 36517 9, 195pp, PB

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