The cost of financing public pensions has been rising sharply over several decades in OECD countries. Rising fertility rates and increased longevity are putting enormous strain on public pensions costs, and rates of employment have not increased to a degree that allows those costs to be offset. For these reasons, the design of public pension programmes has become a priority for government, and a focus for evidence-based academic and policy research.

At the CPE, a number of specific pensions-related research questions are addressed, including:

• design issues in the financing of public pensions;
• pensions policies, employment responses and the choice to retire;
• pensions policies, savings behaviour and asset accumulation;
• the relationship between ill-health and retirement;