Anita Poulou

About me: My name is Anita Poulou. I am a doctoral researcher in Tax Economics at Tilburg University, affiliated with CentER Graduate School, the Fiscal Institute Tilburg, and Netspar, and supervised by Prof. Dr. Ed Westerhout and Prof. Dr. Arjan Lejour. My research sits at the intersection of public finance and household finance, with a focus on pension systems, retirement behaviour, and welfare under financial constraints. I combine theoretical modelling and empirical analysis to address policy-relevant questions in the design of occupational pensions. I am on the 2025–2026 job market. My job-market paper develops a life-cycle model with decreasing relative risk aversion to evaluate centrally managed DC investment rules and finds that one-size-fits-all asset allocation is near welfare-neutral for typical households, while policies that add insurance or scalable risk-taking deliver the largest gains.

CV academic (ENG, FRA); industry (ENG, FRA)

Teaching Statement - Research Statement

Research interests: Household finance; Pension systems; Life-cycle models; Corporate finance

Teaching: Business Taxation (Master); Tax Economics (Master of Research); Thesis Supervision (Master)

Affiliations: Tilburg University (TiSEM); Fiscal Institute Tilburg; Netspar; formerly: Allianz Research

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Implications of centrally managed pensions under DRRA --- Job Market Paper

Keywords: Backward induction, Non-homothetic preferences, Life-cycle optimization, Dynamic programming

Welfare assessment under a pension account with suboptimal investment policies and non-standard utility.

This job-market paper asks a simple question with wide policy relevance: if a defined-contribution plan imposes a one-size-fits-all investment rule on participants whose risk tolerance varies with wealth, how large are the welfare costs? I build a life-cycle framework with non-homothetic preferences in the spirit of Wachter & Yogo (2010)—i.e., DRRA that rises with consumption/wealth—and solve the household problem with a high-dimensional backward-induction algorithm over a four-dimensional state (financial wealth, human wealth, pension wealth, and the pension fund’s policy). The homothetic case nests with closed-form solutions; the DRRA case is handled numerically and explored under extensive calibrations and market scenarios. The benchmark finding is robust and perhaps counter-intuitive: an exogenously managed pension account generates negligible welfare losses relative to the unconstrained optimum across the wealth distribution and across financial scenarios. The mechanism is transparent. Early in the career, both financial and pension wealth optimally sit at the 100% risky boundary, so the imposed rule does not bite; mid-career, accumulated financial wealth is large enough to offset any suboptimal pension allocation; late in the career, human wealth is depleted and leverage demand vanishes, so constraints rarely bind. Where they do bind, adjustments in the freely chosen portfolio absorb them, leaving lifetime utility essentially unchanged.

Against this neutral baseline, I evaluate policies that either shrink the role of the pension account or enhance the value of participation. Size-reducing changes—such as capped contributions or lump-sum decumulation at retirement—are welfare-neutral precisely because the baseline already sits near first-best. By contrast, policies that expand insurance, liquidity, or risk-scaling capacity produce material gains. Intergenerational risk-sharing with leverage delivers the strongest improvements by smoothing shocks in downturns and scaling risk in upturns; leverage alone is pro-cyclical (losses in bad states, large gains in good ones). Tax deferral with a retirement tax break reliably raises welfare through liquidity and lower lifetime taxation, while pure deferral without a break yields modest but positive effects. Exempting pension returns from taxation is downside-sensitive: it erodes implicit insurance in poor markets and offers limited upside in booms. Together, these results indicate that when a centrally managed DC plan is already close to first-best, trimming its size does little, whereas designs that provide insurance or scalable risk-taking matter.

Downsides of actuarial fairness in occupational pensions --- Working Paper

Keywords: Uniformity pricing, Retirement age, Defined benefit v. defined contribution

Study on changes in timing of career exits following a transition from defined-benefit to defined-contribution in occupational pensions.

This paper studies how the pre-reform uniformity pricing design of the Dutch second-pillar pension system shapes work incentives and fiscal outcomes. Because contributions are flat over the career while accruals do not reflect the longer investment horizon of early payments, the system implies rising returns to contributions for individuals with steep earnings growth. The design therefore looks distributionally unattractive—benefits tilt toward higher earners—yet it may also embed strong incentives to supply labor at later ages. The paper asks whether moving to actuarially fair/neutral designs improves fairness at the cost of reducing labor supply and tax revenues.

I build a custom model that mirrors key institutional features of Dutch defined-benefit (DB) arrangements and their reform toward actuarially fair DB/DC alternatives. Preferences are hand-to-mouth, so the pension system is the savings vehicle relevant for intertemporal decisions; retirement timing is an endogenous choice on the work–leisure margin. I compare (i) uniformity pricing, (ii) actuarially fair/neutral DB, and (iii) actuarially fair/neutral DC. The analysis also allows for earnings-linked life-expectancy differences, reflecting observed gradients in longevity.

Uniformity pricing generates back-loaded rewards: as careers progress, one euro contributed yields a higher implicit return, especially for workers with fast wage growth. This feature is neither actuarially fair nor actuarially neutral, but it strengthens work incentives and delays retirement most for high earners. When the system is redesigned to be actuarially fair/neutral—whether in DB or DC form—retirement shifts earlier for all groups, with the largest adjustments among those with steep earnings paths. Because these individuals also form a disproportionate share of the tax base, aggregate income-tax receipts fall. Longevity differences amplify these effects: reforms that neutralize cross-subsidies also attenuate the implicit incentive that had partly offset higher-earner longevity advantages.

The ostensibly fairer reform—eliminating unintended transfers to higher earners—removes a built-in labor-supply instrument. The result is a fairness–efficiency trade-off: improved within-cohort actuarial fairness comes with weaker extensive-margin labor supply and a lower tax base, especially at the top.

Pessimism and proactivity in pension preparation --- In Progress

Keywords: Households' beliefs, Savings behavior, Household finance, Retirement preparedness

Empirical study on financial planning choices of households depending on their level of trust in pension systems.

This chapter tests whether pessimism about France’s statutory (PAYG-DB) pensions translates into concrete preparation and, if so, through which saving channels. Guided by life-cycle models, it posits: (i) stronger pessimism about austerity (e.g., later retirement ages, higher contributions, lower replacement rates) should raise retirement preparation and voluntary savings formation; and (ii) when that pessimism extends to the broader fiscal environment, households shift from regulated, tax-deferred pension accounts to more flexible, less regulated vehicles that preserve liquidity. Without that broader extrapolation, pessimists favor regulated, tax-advantaged accounts. The hypotheses also distinguish attitudes from behavior and allow heterogeneity by age and preparedness.

We use French cross-sectional surveys from 2017–2019 (INSEE Histoire de vie et Patrimoine and the 2019 retirement follow-up) to model participation in (i) regulated third-pillar pension accounts and (ii) flexible, non-tax-deferred “fourth-pillar” savings (i.e., life insurance & similar envelopes), alongside measures of attitudes and preparation (e.g., information search, adviser use, stated motives). Outcomes are estimated with logit; robustness subsample splits by age, ability to save, baseline preparedness, and general economic sentiment; additional specifications include probit regressions and added control variables about retirement preparedness intensity. Third-pillar accounts are tax-deferred, retirement-specific DC products; fourth-pillar vehicles are long-horizon, possibly tax-advantaged but less regulated products with greater liquidity.

Pension pessimism correlates positively with greater preparation and saving intentions, but effects are selective and mediated by outlook. Third-pillar participation rises chiefly among older, financially prepared, broadly optimistic respondents—those using regulated products to protect relative living standards when they expect lower replacement rates. In contrast, moderate-to-strong pessimism predicts greater use of flexible, non-tax-deferred vehicles, consistent with hedging policy risk by keeping savings outside tightly regulated wrappers. The pessimism-to-action link is not automatic: expected absolute living standards dampen responses to expected relative pension losses. Results are robust across specifications and appear in attitudes (“saving extra”), preparation steps, and saving behavior; several patterns strengthen at the young and old ends of the age distribution.

Macroeconomic Research --- Co-authored work at Allianz SE and Allianz Trade

The flaw in the liquidity paradigm: Lessons from China, May 31, 2021, available here

Joe Biden's infrastructure plan: Defying gravity, Apr 6, 2021, available here

The not so merry adventures of the Robin Hood generation in financial markets, Mar 3, 2021, available here

President Biden's inauguration: 100 days to save America, Jan 20, 2021, available here

Brexiting in times of Covid-19, Jan 12, 2021, available here

Europe: One in four corporates will need more policy support in 2021 to avert a cash-flow crisis, Nov 24, 2020, available here

RCEP: Common rule of origin could boost regional trade by around USD90bn annually, Nov 17, 2020, available here

Joe Biden's victory: Reconciliation economics, Nov 9, 2020, available here

The U.S. elections turn into a judiciary battle: What’s next?, Nov 6, 2020, available here

A Hard Brexit could cost the EU EUR 33bn in annual exports, Oct 20, 2020, available here

U.S. elections — We have a winner: Debt, Sep 29, 2020, available here

Covid-19 to increase firms’ liquidity needs to a record USD8tn as payment delays and inventories surge, Jul 7, 2020, available here

Brexit: Trade tricks won't be enough, Jul 1, 2020, available here and published in Current Economics

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