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The Organisation For Economic Co-operation and Development's goal of promoting policies that improve the economic and social wellbeing of people around the world is something few people would fault. For the OECD's private pensions unit principal economist, Pablo Antolin, that means making sure nations understand they have to get their citizens to retire later while at the same time establishing safe and efficient structures for individuals to save money for themselves.
The OECD, whose membership is made up of 34 states, principally in the developed world, says there are two key areas that countries need to address if they are to combat the growing economic burden of changing demographics - later retirement and extending the coverage of private pensions.
The UK's accelerated increases in state pension age have put us near the top of the class on the first count. And our massive existing private pension sector, soon to be supplemented by auto-enrolment, means the UK is already well placed in many parts of the latter. But that does not mean we do not face significant challenges.
A recent OECD report found the investment returns achieved by our savings industry since the turn of the millennium have been among the worst in the developed world.
The OECD figures show a stark difference in average investment returns between UK schemes and other European countries. Between 2001 and 2010, UK pensions achieved on average an annualised real return of -0.1 per cent a year, compared to Germany's +3 per cent and Denmark's +4 per cent.
For Antolin, that does not necessarily mean UK pension fund managers have to ape the conservative investment strategies used by their European counterparts. But it does mean attention needs to be paid to ensuring the pension savers are not exposed to more risk than necessary.
"Why has Germany done better than the UK? What matters is asset allocation. The UK has been, on average, more into risky assets than Germany. So you look at the past 10 years, when risky assets have done badly, and it is clear that the UK would do worse than Germany," says Antolin.
"But if you look at a more appropriate period for pension saving - say 40 years - there is not much difference between the...