Che cosa i lavoratori conoscono e non conoscono riguardo il loro sistema pensionistico

This thesis has the aim to analyze and study the issues related to pension knowledge. We have taken in consideration the data from the Health and Retirement Study, a national survey of the American population that started to be widespread from year 1992. This study wanted to evaluate if individuals are able to estimate, and with a certain precision, their future security benefits and future pension benefits. The results of this research were not positive, as it was found that citizens don't have a clear idea of what their pension benefits will be. In the second place we have analyzed another study, developed by Gustman and Steinmeier. These researches, always using the data of the HRS study, tried to find out what are the factors that imply more or less pension knowledge. One of the most significant results of their work, was that the absence of information about expected social security benefits and misinformation about them, is the most popular condition among the working population .The fact of having elaborated an idea on retirement or having discussed about retirement with a friend, reduces in a certain way, the possibility that an insured reports, he doesn't know the value of his pension, but these activities have small effects on the precision of reported pension amounts. It is estimated that individuals who have participated in a meeting about retirement generally declare a higher estimate of their pension value, but are very imprecise in reporting their pension values, and the errors that they report, are more often positive errors instead of negative ones. The most efficient pension system in the world is considered the Swedish one; it is perfect in all aspects relating to secureness and fairness. This thesis tried to explain how the Swedish system works and in particular it focuses on the program they use in order to help workers understand their pension. The famous program that we analyzed is the Orange Envelope. The method ¿orange envelope¿ was developed for the first time in Sweden and it was finalized to improve the consciousness and the knowledge of pension system by all insured. The method consists of a letter that is delivered to all insured and that contains various information about the situation of their contribution accrued and it gives a forecast about the future benefits that each citizen will receive. A similar program was introduced also in Italy, with the so called ¿blue letter¿. All workers started receiving from The National Institute of social security (INPS) a letter containing a pin code, that has to be inserted in the Inps web site and, in this way, the insured can control the situation of their contribution position. The italian pension system recently changed with the Fornero reform. This thesis provides an overview of the characteristics of the new italian pension system with respect to the old one, and then it evaluates if the ¿blue letter¿ program has had any effect on workers' knowledge. Can individuals better understand their pension system with this letter ? The answer to this question is negative. Using a small survey created by Philip Hibberd Costa, we tried to understand if the fact of receiving the ¿blue letter¿ and accessing the website, could improve the estimation of workers future benefits.