Pension reform in the United Kingdom: an economic perspective
Publication date: 3 Aug 2016
| Publication type: National Institute Economic Review
| Theme: Britain & Finance
| JEL Classification: H55, J32, G22
| Journal: National Institute Economic Review
Issue 237
| Publisher: Sage Publications, London
This paper considers the evolution of the UK’s pension programme in the light of various stated rationales for public intervention. It argues that the publicly-provided (tax-financed) pension programme has gone through four distinct stages since 1946. It examines some of the issues that have arisen in the context of private pension provision in the UK, both in the form of so-called ‘defined benefit’ and ‘defined contribution’ pension plans, as well as individual purchases of annuities.