Dr. Wolf Ishay

Pension arrangements have moved to the top of the policymakers' agenda. The recent period of pensions reforms has been
driven mainly by growing concern about the economic impact of aging and a need for fiscal restraint, leading to more
privatized, partially funded, more delayed, and less sufficient income support in old age (Bonenkamp et. al, 2016).
In recent years the problem of pension design has become clearer. From one side demographic challenge which fiscally
threatens the western world's conservative pension design. On the other side, the privatization and capitalization trend highly
exposed the individual to a variety of risks and may deepen poverty and inequality in old-age.
Pension policy actors find it difficult to predict the future outcomes of new design or modified pension schemes. Frequently, the
future outcomes of pension policies remain a black box at the time of their implementation. It requires a period of decades of
unchanged regulation and stable employment under the new scheme to capture the pure outcomes of any pension reform.
Hence, in this period of time, after decades of continuing reforms and after periods of the financial crisis, this thesis may
contribute to enlighten the consequences of pension reforms.
The thesis analyzes the cause and the timing of pension reforms in Europe in the context of a variety of risks. This analysis
includes deepening in the European pension trends and their particular designs. In particular, this work addresses the
influences of the last financial crisis and the increase of financial risk on old-age benefits.
In the core of the analytical part, this dissertation argues that the implementation of a pension scheme and its arrangements is
linked directly to the financial position between the government and the individual in a specific economy, and influenced by the
risk averting and risk hedging capability of each side. Moreover, analyzing and understanding this special connection may
assist in strengthening the sustainability of a pension scheme for the long-run