Session 1: How to draw a dividing line between market and state: Who does what, and why

 Debates about the roles of markets and government are often framed as a binary choice between reliance mainly   on markets or mainly on government activity. The lecture explains why (a) based on the findings of multiple Nobel   prizes this century, leaving everything to markets does not work well, and (b) drawing on the communist   experience, why leaving everything to government does not work well. The analysis shows the conditions under   which an activity works better with market allocation, and when government intervention can be useful. The lecture establishes the theoretical underpinnings for the remaining lectures.

  Coffe Break

 Session 2: Pensions: Lessons from economic theory Part 1: Don’t overstate the usefulness     of building a fund

 Lectures 2 and 3 set out the economics of pensions. Lecture 2 outlines some background material and then                 explains that what matters for addressing population ageing are not pension funds per se, but increased saving         that translates into increased productive investment.

   Almuerzo

 Session 3: Pensions: Lessons from economic theory Part 2: Don’t overstate the usefulness     of consumer choice

Lecture 3 draws on the findings of behavioural economics, supported by empirical evidence, that explain why              individual choice, though desirable for many goods and services, works badly for complex products like pensions.

Session 4:  Challenges and solutions

Drawing on the analytical findings set out in lectures 2 and 3, lectures 3 and 4 identify the main challenges and   ways of addressing them.  Challenges include increasingly fluid labour-market relations, declining fertility and   increasing longevity. Policies to address those challenges include non-contributory pensions, pension designs to   increase saving, and labour market and pension reform to facilitate later and more flexible retirement.

  Coffe Break

 Session 5: Case studies

 Lecture 5 considers advising Chile and (joint with Peter Diamond) advising Australia.

  Almuerzo

Session 6: Raising productivity: The centrality of human capital

One aspect of addressing population ageing relates to pension design; a parallel aspect is raising the productivity of the workforce, for which a central and (the lecture will argue) increasingly important element is human capital.  Clearly school attainment matters, but the lecture will focus mainly to two other aspects – the under-emphasised importance of early child development, and the controversy raised by the need to finance mass, high-quality higher education.

Session 7: Spanish pensions system in a global context

This session will consider the challenges for Spain in its own pensions system, considering other global examples the previous day, and the challenges brought by changing demographics and labour markets.

 Coffe Break

Session 8: Financial wellbeing and behavioral pensions 

We will follow up on the previous sessions by delving deeper into the keys to financial wellbeing, the most relevant of which is savings. We will link long-term savings, pensions, the importance of considering people's behavior in savings processes and the behavioral techniques that can be applied. We will end with some mention of the use of artificial intelligence in this area.

Descanso

Session 9: A walk into the future: megatrends, behavior and longevity.

 We will finally examine the three big megatrends - technology, longevity and sustainability - and how they are   linked through behavioral science.   We will also mention the current narratives that shape our vision and the   behavioral traps that affect it and make a mention of how we prepare for the future, in particular, the role that   financial wellbeing should play.

The session will end with a chance for participants to have a final Q&A, followed by a Certificate Ceremony.