Empirical pension indicators: Cross-country comparisons and methodology for Russia

The article proposes a system of empirical indicators for Russia, taking into account the analysis of foreign and Russian approaches to assessing the adequacy of the level of pension provision. One group of the indicators, designed for crosscountry comparisons, is based on the methodology of the European Commission. The results of calculations of the proposed indicators on Russian data are presented, which made it possible to compare the level of pensions in Russia and European Union countries. The article defines the limitations of indicators for cross-country comparisons in terms of assessing the level of pension payments within the Russian system of compulsory pension insurance. For more adequate assessment of the adequacy of payments, the second group of indicators was developed that take into account the particularities of the Russian pension system. A distinctive feature of the proposed approach to the assessment of empirical indicators is that they are focused primarily on assessing the adequacy of the actual pension payments in terms of fulfilling the functions assigned to them - protection from poverty, compensation (replacement) of wages and ensuring the balance of income. The authors propose to evaluate these indicators not only on the data of population surveys, as is most common in foreign practice, but also on the administrative data of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation.