Professor James Poterba will deliver the Morishima Lecture 2018 on the topic of the design of pension plans over the last decades.

Retirement pension plans are a major challenge in countries with ageing populations. James Poterba will discuss how their design evolved over the last decades and how the US and UK followed strikingly different paths.

James Poterba is the Mitsui Professor of Economics at MIT and the President of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He has served as President of the Eastern Economic Association and the National Tax Association, as vice president of the American Economic Association, and as a director of the American Finance Association. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Econometric Society. He has also served as a member of the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform in 2005.

Dr Poterba's research focuses on how taxation affects the economic decisions of households and firms, particularly those involving saving and portfolio behaviour. His recent research has analysed the determinants of retirement saving, the draw-down of assets after households reach retirement, and the role of tax-deferred retirement saving programs such as 401(k) plans in contributing to retirement security.

After the lecture, James Poterba will present the Hicks Prize to Guo Xu for his thesis entitled “Essays in Development and Organisation”.

Twitter hashtag for this event: #LSEMorishima