The Global Risks Alliance (GRA)
Pension systems, sovereign funds and endowments move resources across generations: contributions today pay benefits tomorrow, and spending today draws on capital meant to last. How those systems are designed decides which cohorts bear market, longevity and inflation risk, and who pays when promises and assets diverge. This page sets out how intergenerational transfers arise in funded and pay-as-you-go systems, how they are measured, and what the evidence serves for the legislatures, boards and ministries who set the rules.
GRA · Established · service level R0
Intergenerational equity is the fair treatment of different generations in how resources and risks are shared over time. Pension systems, sovereign funds and endowments move resources across cohorts: contributions today pay benefits tomorrow, and spending today draws on capital meant to last, so design decides who gains and who pays.
For intergenerational equity, in GRA's spatial-finance reading, the map opens on population density and night lights with built-up and settlement extent from NASA GIBS, framed on Oceania and the Pacific; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.
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NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
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For intergenerational equity, in GRA's spatial-finance reading, the map opens on population density and night lights with built-up and settlement extent from NASA GIBS, framed on Oceania and the Pacific; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date; indicators, not assessments of any place; claim ceiling INTEGRATED.
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Long-term savings and social conditions. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
When a funded scheme or public plan is underfunded, the gap is closed by future contributions, reduced benefits or taxpayers. Long recovery periods spread the cost forward to members and citizens who did not accrue the benefits.
The move from defined benefit to defined contribution transfers market and longevity risk to individuals, whose outcomes depend on when they happen to retire. Collective designs share risk across cohorts through buffers and conditional indexation.
Endowments and sovereign funds set spending rates intended to preserve real capital for future beneficiaries. Spending above the sustainable rate favours the present; spending below it favours the future, and both are policy choices.
Informal workers, career breaks and lower earnings leave many people with thin pension rights, and the gaps widen with age. Adequacy and equity within a generation are part of fairness between generations.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Replacement rate | Pension income as a share of earnings before retirement. |
| Spending rule | A rule setting how much an endowment or sovereign fund may spend each year. |
| Defined contribution | A pension in which the member bears investment and longevity risk on an individual account. |
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gross replacement rate | percent of pre-retirement earnings | each projection round | OECD pension models | MODELLED |
| Old-age income poverty rate | percent of population of pension age | annual | Household income surveys | OFFICIAL |
| Gender gap in pension income | percent | annual | Household income surveys | OFFICIAL |
| Coverage of the working-age population by funded pensions | percent of working-age population | annual | Administrative records and surveys | OFFICIAL |
| Spending rate of an endowment or sovereign fund | percent of fund value per year | annual | Fiscal rules and fund reports | DECLARED |
| Implicit pension liability of public schemes | percent of gross domestic product | each projection round | Government actuary projections | MODELLED |
| Contribution rate to mandatory pension schemes | percent of earnings | annual | Legislation and administrative records | OFFICIAL |
The topic as a computational graph: named sources feed the methods, an evidence review gates the outputs, and the decisions stay with the authorities that hold them.
Fig. 02Nodes carry their type, two metric rows and a state; connectors show what feeds what; dashed frames name the owners; the timeline is the cadence. Design of the pipeline, not a record of a run.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| OECD Pensions at a Glance | Replacement rates, coverage, retirement ages and old-age income across countries | Free reuse, attribution |
| OECD Income Distribution Database | Old-age income and poverty rates on a comparable basis | Free reuse, attribution |
| ILO World Social Protection Database | Coverage of old-age pensions and social protection by country | Free to use, attribution |
| World Bank ASPIRE | Coverage and adequacy of social protection programmes, including pensions | Creative Commons attribution |
| European Commission Pension Adequacy Report | Adequacy, gender gaps and projections for EU pension systems | Free reuse, attribution |
| US Social Security Trustees Report | Long-range financial projections of the US Social Security trust funds | Public domain |
| NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments | Spending rates, allocations and governance of US college and university endowments | Summary free to read; full study licensed |
| Annual reports and fiscal rules for sovereign funds | Spending rules, transfers to budgets and long-term objectives | Public records, terms per government or fund |
Institutional Funds Nexus prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Legislatures and pension ministries | How to set benefit formulas, retirement ages, contribution rates and indexation | Projected adequacy and cost by cohort; distribution of risk under each design |
| Finance ministries and parliaments overseeing sovereign funds | What spending or transfer rule preserves the fund for future generations | Real capital projections under spending rules and return scenarios |
| Boards of collective pension schemes | How to use buffers, conditional indexation and benefit adjustments between cohorts | Cohort outcomes under scenarios and the rules that trigger each adjustment |
| Endowment boards and university trustees | What spending policy balances current support against future purchasing power | Real value and spending paths under return and inflation scenarios |
The questions concern who pays, who benefits and when.
Deficits that are not funded today are paid later, by future contributions, reduced benefits or public budgets. Changes to benefit design, such as moving from defined benefit to defined contribution, shift risks between cohorts. Discount rates embed judgements about how much future obligations count today.
Beyond finance, institutional funds invest in the economy that future beneficiaries will inherit. Their decisions affect housing, infrastructure, labour markets and the environment. Social conditions, such as inequality, health and the stability of work, in turn shape whether people can save and what retirement security means.
| Method or data | What it shows | Limits |
|---|---|---|
| Generational accounting | How fiscal and pension burdens fall across cohorts | Depends on long projections and assumptions |
| Cohort adequacy modelling | Retirement outcomes by generation | Behavioural and labour market assumptions |
| Distributional analysis of reforms | Who gains and loses from changes | Long-run effects are uncertain |
| Social and demographic research | Conditions shaping saving and retirement | Evidence is often national and periodic |
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.