SINTESI DI MARIA COZZOLINO, FERNANDO DI NICOLA, MICHELE RAITANO

 

WP N. 64

 

 

PENSION FUNDS’S PERSPECTIVE AND TFR: OPPORTUNITIES AND OPTIONS

 

ABSTRACT

 

The use of TFR (a sort of severance payment) to fund the complementary pension scheme, except when the worker explicitly says not to, has been established by the legislative measures reforming the Italian pension system (law n. 243 approved in summer 2004 and decree n. 252 approved in December 2005). The Italian workers will have choice to invest more saving in pension funds or to maintain the TFR into their firms.

In this paper the choices of workers are analyzed. The results of an ISAE survey, conducted in two phases - in September-December 2004 and in September-October 2005 -, show that the measures included in the second pillar reform are not sufficient to influence the preferences of workers and to incentive them to invest the future flows of TFR in pension funds. The choice in favour of TFR - declared from more than that 80% of workers that have already decided which option choose - seems to depend crucially on the degree of uncertainty and risk related to the pension funds investments (versus the TFR in the firms option).

The effects of four scenarios of the TFR’s and the pension funds’s taxation on income distribution, public budget and the worker’s choices are analyzed.

Key Words: Retirement, Retirement Policies, Private Pensions, Taxation

JEL: J26, J32, H29