Publications

This article analyses recent developments in the average effective retirement age in light of the 2011 reform and the different forms of retirement. The analysis shows, first, that the effective retirement age has tended to increase in recent years as a result of the net increase in the retirement age within all forms of retirement, which has more than offset the opposite effect prompted by the growing share of the various forms of early retirement. Second, the impact of the 2011 reform, from the standpoint of retirement age, seemingly remains limited, as the percentage of new retirees who take retirement on the basis of legislation prior to the reform is still significant, and the statutory retirement age for workers with sufficiently lengthy contribution histories is still 65. Third, on average, workers who take some form of early or partial retirement have the lowest retirement age, although they generally have longer contribution periods and higher regulatory bases.

This article estimates the financial return provided by the Spanish pension system for a sample of new retirees in 2017, calculated on the basis of the Muestra Continua de Vidas Laborales. The findings show an average real annual return (understood as the discount factor that equates the present value of the contributions paid over a working life with the value of the expected pension) of 3.5%, the 25th and 75th percentiles of the distribution of the estimated returns being 2.5% and 4.2%, respectively. By type of pension, the lowest returns are associated with early retirement, while late retirement produces higher returns, although these are still lower than for ordinary retirement. In terms of pension unit cost, the system would provide more than €1 of benefit for each euro of contribution for most of the individuals in the sample. The findings show that, on average, 2017 retirees receive €1.74 of pension for each euro of contribution; the 25th and 75th percentiles of the distribution are €1.25 and €2.03, respectively.

COVID-19 has spread globally, and most countries have adopted extraordinary measures to mitigate its effects on public health. These include bringing part of economic activity to a standstill and the confinement of the population, and they are exerting a most severe contractionary effect on GDP and employment worldwide. While the resolute action of national and supranational authorities will contribute to alleviating these effects, their magnitude remains, for the moment, highly uncertain.
This article develops a set of scenarios for the Spanish economy that consider various alternative assumptions about the duration of the confinement and the persistence of the shock the economy has undergone. In this connection, two different methodologies are used. The first rests on an assessment of sectoral output losses as a result of the epidemic containment measures; the second is based on simulations of the main transmission channels of the economic effects of the pandemic, using the Banco de España Quarterly Model (MTBE). The results of the different scenarios point to reductions in Spanish GDP in 2020 unprecedented in recent history. That said, the scale of the reductions is highly sensitive to the starting assumptions, over whose plausibility there is much uncertainty. Once the height of the crisis is behind us in the short term, activity should begin to recover at a rate which will in any event depend on how the health risk is perceived in the coming months and on the capacity for recovery of that part of the productive system most damaged by the current shutdown. With a view to 2021, foreseeably the Spanish economy will substantially - but not fully – recoup the course of activity and employment expected before the pandemic.
It is necessary to highlight, in any case, the provisional nature of these calculations. They must be subjected in the coming months to ongoing revision as new information progressively becomes available.

Population ageing is a major global challenge. The Latin American economies have a younger population structure than other emerging and advanced economies, which has allowed them to enjoy the so-called demographic dividend (a favourable working age/non-working age population ratio). However, according to the latest demographic projections of the United Nations (UN), it is estimated that in 2020 the Latin American population pyramid will resemble that of the advanced economies in 1990 and that, by around 2050, both groups will have similar population profiles. This article documents the current demographic trends in Latin America and discusses the main related challenges, in particular, those arising from the adaptation of social welfare systems to population ageing.