Fitxa persona

Carlos Vidal-Meliá is Full Professor of Financial Economics and Actuarial Science at the University of Valencia and a member of the Instituto Universitario de Derecho Patrimonial–Patrimonium at the same university.

Academic Background

Dr. Vidal-Meliá holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Valencia, a degree in Actuarial Science from the Complutense University of Madrid, and a degree in Business from the University of Valencia.

Research Contributions

Academic journals represented in his research output, listed alphabetically:

Applied Economics; Applied Economics Letters; ASTIN Bulletin; Belgian Actuarial Bulletin; Economic Research–Ekonomska Istraživanja; Economies; European Journal of Population; Family Transitions; Fiscal Studies; Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance–Issues and Practice; Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics; Humanities and Social Sciences Communications; Innovar; Insurance: Mathematics and Economics; International Journal for Equity in Health; International Social Security Review; Journal of Economic Policy Reform; Journal of Pension Economics and Finance; Journal of Population Ageing; Journal of Risk and Financial Management; Journal of Risk and Insurance; Mathematics; Moneda y Crédito; Public Money & Management; Quality & Quantity; Revista de Análisis Económico; Revista de Derecho del Sistema Financiero: mercados, operadores y contratos; Revista de Economía Aplicada; Revista de Economía Financiera; Revista Española de Financiación y Contabilidad; Scandinavian Actuarial Journal; SERIEs (Journal of the Spanish Economic Association); SORT (Statistics and Operations Research Transactions); Sustainability.

Research Interests

Dr. Vidal-Meliá's research addresses key actuarial and policy issues within public pension systems and long-term care financing. His work spans the following areas:

1. Public pension reform: Focuses on improving sustainability, transparency, and solvency in pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension systems, particularly through mechanisms like notional defined contribution (NDC) schemes, actuarial balance sheets, and automatic balancing mechanisms.
2. Notional accounts: Extensive work on the design and implementation of notional accounts, assessing how these can be applied to public pension systems to align contributions with benefits and ensure financial stability.
3. Automatic balance mechanisms: Research on tools to automatically adjust public pension systems in response to demographic changes and economic fluctuations, with a focus on mitigating the effects of longevity and low fertility.
4. Gender redistribution in pension systems: Studies on the implications of using unisex conversion factors in life annuities, particularly how these impact gender equity in pension benefits.
5. Joint life care annuities (LCAs): Analyzes the integration of long-term care (LTC) into annuity products for couples, providing financial solutions to address healthcare needs in retirement.
6. Pension system financial health: Development of actuarial balance sheets to evaluate the solvency and financial status of PAYG pension systems, as seen in Sweden and Spain.
7. Pension reforms in Spain: Evaluation of the 2011-2013 pension reforms in Spain using the Swedish NDC system as a benchmark, focusing on how the reforms diverged from the proposed improvements in equity and transparency.
8. Integration of retirement and disability pensions: Theoretical work on unifying retirement and disability pensions within a single framework, aiming for a more cohesive pension system that better accommodates various life contingencies.
9. Long-term care financing: Research on combining pension benefits with long-term care coverage, addressing the growing need for integrated solutions as populations age.
10. Mortality studies: Analysis of mortality tables and their updates, focusing on how these are used to assess life expectancy and adjust conversion factors in pension systems. This includes evaluating the impact of demographic changes on mortality rates and how these affect pensions.
11. Social insurance accounting and Eurostat’s Table 29: Research on the valuation of accrued-to-date pension entitlements and the transformation of this information into actuarial balance sheets to assess public pension solvency.
12. Demographic coherence in mortality tables for LCAs and LTCI: His research emphasizes the need for consistency between demographic assumptions and the mortality tables used to calculate the premiums of life care annuities (LCAs) and long-term care insurance (LTCI). Ensuring demographic coherence is essential for accurately pricing these products and avoiding discrepancies that could impact their financial sustainability.
13. Divorce insurance: Actuarial modelling of financial protection against marital dissolution and analysis of its feasibility and legal dimensions, in collaboration with Juan Bataller Grau.
14. Data and reproducibility: Analysis using the Continuous Sample of Working Lives (MCVL), simulation models and the dissemination of replication data and software packages on Zenodo.

Policy Influence

In 2009, as part of the Toledo Pact, Dr. Vidal-Meliá proposed reforms to the Spanish public pension system inspired by the Swedish model. His suggestions, including the introduction of notional accounts, actuarial balances, and automatic balance mechanisms, aimed to improve equity, transparency, solvency, and communication within the system. However, the reforms implemented in Spain between 2011 and 2013 significantly diverged from his recommendations.

Key publications on this topic include:

• Vidal-Meliá, C. (2014). An Assessment of the 2011 Spanish Pension Reform Using the Swedish System as Benchmark, Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, 13(03), 297-333.
• Vidal-Meliá, C. (2014). Una storia infinita (The 2011-2013 Spanish pension reform: a never-ending story), Opificium, Revista Consiglio Nazionale Periti Industriali, 5(4), 38-41.

Recent activity (2026)

His recent work examines actuarial fairness in Spanish pensions, the returns on permanent-disability pensions, survivor reversibility, hidden redistribution and delayed-retirement incentives. He is Guest Editor of the Economies Special Issue “Sustainable Pension and Social Security Reform in Ageing Economies: Adequacy, Fiscal Sustainability and Intergenerational Equity”.

On 25 September 2026, he presented Pensiones en España y cuentas nocionales: Jubilación, incapacidad y reversibilidad. Longevidad y redistribución implícita, coauthored with Ahmed Ación López, at the II Jornada sobre el Sistema Público de Pensiones y Seguridad Social, held at Fundación Ramón Areces, Madrid, and organised by FEDEA.

On 26 August 2026, he jointly presented Construyendo el seguro de divorcio: Una aproximación actuarial y jurídica with Juan Bataller Grau at the XIX Congreso Internacional CILA and 33 Encuentro Nacional ACOLDESE in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia.

Consulting and Professional Experience

His professional experience has primarily focused on the financial sector of regional small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and on the field of social security, both public and private. In the public sector, he has led, participated in, advised, and/or conducted research for: the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, the World Bank, the Swedish Social Security Agency, IVIE, Funcas, the Ministry of Labour and Immigration, the Ministry of Education and Science, and the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. In the private sector, his professional work has been directed towards actuarial opinions and reviews for various insurance companies, pension externalization issues, retirement awards, judicial expertise, etc. Without attempting to be exhaustive, he has carried out professional work and/or delivered specialized courses for: ASEVAL, BIA Galicia/CXG Aviva, Vidacaixa, Santander Pensiones, Cámara Valencia, Federico Domenech S.A., Ford España S.A., Getronics S.A., Grupo Aguas de Valencia, Grupo Boluda S.A., Iberdrola S.A., INARCASSA (Rome), MARVALSA, PHILIPS, Unión Naval de Barcelona S.A., Instituto de Estudios Fiscales, the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIREF), and various universities such as Jaume I (Castellón), UCLM, Extremadura, Jaén, UPO (Seville), and Valladolid.

Teaching work

His teaching has primarily focused on the areas of Financial and Actuarial Mathematics, Life Insurance, Dependency and Health, Pension Plans, Social Security Techniques, and Financial and Cost Accounting.

Full CV, publications and presentations on his personal academic website.