The Australian Retirement Lottery: A System Failure

Abstract

Sudden market crashes can wipe out a significant part of individuals’ wealth. The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact on retirement savings by taking into account both the Knightian risk arising from market volatility under normal market conditions as well as the Knightian uncertainty arising from rare but severe market shocks. Given the low frequency, high impact of market shocks, and the format of the Australian retirement system, the result is that cohorts of Australian retirees will enjoy very different levels of retirement income and there will be consequent shocks to the demand for the Age Pension supplement and potentially, significant variations in the standard of living in retirement for Australian employees. Whilst the Australian retirement system has been put forward as a model for other economies to follow, we find there is a fundamental flaw in the system.

Keywords: Superannuation Guarantee Levy, Retirement Funding, Market Shocks, Econometric modelling

JEL Classification: G17, G18