Reforming Pensions: Principles and Policy Choices

Reforming Pensions: Principles and Policy Choices PDF Author: Nicholas Barr
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199885990
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 763

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Book Description
Mandatory pensions are a worldwide phenomenon. However, with fixed contribution rates, monthly benefits, and retirement ages, pension systems are not consistent with three long-run trends: declining mortality, declining fertility, and earlier retirement. Many systems need reform. This book gives an extensive nontechnical explanation of the economics of pension design. The theoretical arguments have three elements: * Pension systems have multiple objectives--consumption smoothing, insurance, poverty relief, and redistribution. Good policy needs to bear them all in mind. * Good analysis should be framed in a second-best context-- simple economic models are a bad guide to policy design in a world with imperfect information and decision-making, incomplete markets and taxation. * Any choice of pension system has risk-sharing and distributional consequences, which the book recognizes explicitly. Barr and Diamond's analysis includes labor markets, capital markets, risk sharing, and gender and family, with comparison of PAYG and funded systems, recognizing that the suitable level of funding differs by country. Alongside the economic principles of good design, policy must also take account of a country's capacity to implement the system. Thus the theoretical analysis is complemented by discussion of implementation, and of experiences, both good and bad, in many countries, with particular attention to Chile and China.

Pension Reform

Pension Reform PDF Author: Nicholas Barr
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195387724
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
This book is an abridgement of Barr and Diamond's Reforming Pensions: Principles and Policy Choices (OUP, 2008). It begins with the introduction to the earlier book, includes the concluding chapters to the sections on principles and on policy choices and the concluding policy chapter to the book. It summarizes the Chile and China chapters into a section of five pages. It presents material from some of the boxes of the longer book. While the longer book remains as a definitive and detailed analysis of pension reform, this new, shorter book conveys the message and conclusions to policy makers, journalists writing for the general public, and students being introduced to social security and other pension policy.The topic being condensed and summarized here is described at length in the earlier book. It stems from rapidly changing economic conditions and dramatic increases in life expectancy. Newspaper headlines across the globe anticipate again and again a massive rupture of social security and retirement systems. With public fears on the rise, officials in many countries under pressure to solve problems quickly are turning their backs on traditional pay-as-you-go systems in favor of privately financed retirement plans. Barr and Diamond demonstrate that in the age of globalization these problems are no longer simply domestic problems. Because trade borders are becoming increasingly open and digital transactions are hastily erasing national economic boundaries, countries are no longer able to act independently in setting pension policies. These problems are particularly exacerbated in China, a state where massive restructuring of state-owned enterprises and comparatively recent dynamic entry into global markets have already taxed a system whose enormous burden is to support the retirement of the world's largest national population. The authors address these issues comprehensively in a thorough survey of pension economic principles and application to China.

Reforming Pensions: Principles and Policy Choices

Reforming Pensions: Principles and Policy Choices PDF Author: Nicholas Barr
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199885990
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 763

Get Book Here

Book Description
Mandatory pensions are a worldwide phenomenon. However, with fixed contribution rates, monthly benefits, and retirement ages, pension systems are not consistent with three long-run trends: declining mortality, declining fertility, and earlier retirement. Many systems need reform. This book gives an extensive nontechnical explanation of the economics of pension design. The theoretical arguments have three elements: * Pension systems have multiple objectives--consumption smoothing, insurance, poverty relief, and redistribution. Good policy needs to bear them all in mind. * Good analysis should be framed in a second-best context-- simple economic models are a bad guide to policy design in a world with imperfect information and decision-making, incomplete markets and taxation. * Any choice of pension system has risk-sharing and distributional consequences, which the book recognizes explicitly. Barr and Diamond's analysis includes labor markets, capital markets, risk sharing, and gender and family, with comparison of PAYG and funded systems, recognizing that the suitable level of funding differs by country. Alongside the economic principles of good design, policy must also take account of a country's capacity to implement the system. Thus the theoretical analysis is complemented by discussion of implementation, and of experiences, both good and bad, in many countries, with particular attention to Chile and China.

Reforming Pensions

Reforming Pensions PDF Author: Nicholas Barr
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199741972
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
Mandatory pensions are a worldwide phenomenon. However, with fixed contribution rates, monthly benefits, and retirement ages, pension systems are not consistent with three long-run trends: declining mortality, declining fertility, and earlier retirement. Many systems need reform. This book gives an extensive nontechnical explanation of the economics of pension design. The theoretical arguments have three elements: * Pension systems have multiple objectives--consumption smoothing, insurance, poverty relief, and redistribution. Good policy needs to bear them all in mind. * Good analysis should be framed in a second-best context-- simple economic models are a bad guide to policy design in a world with imperfect information and decision-making, incomplete markets and taxation. * Any choice of pension system has risk-sharing and distributional consequences, which the book recognizes explicitly. Barr and Diamond's analysis includes labor markets, capital markets, risk sharing, and gender and family, with comparison of PAYG and funded systems, recognizing that the suitable level of funding differs by country. Alongside the economic principles of good design, policy must also take account of a country's capacity to implement the system. Thus the theoretical analysis is complemented by discussion of implementation, and of experiences, both good and bad, in many countries, with particular attention to Chile and China.

Lessons from Pension Reform in the Americas

Lessons from Pension Reform in the Americas PDF Author: Stephen J. Kay
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191527696
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
Latin American experiments with pension reform began when Chile converted its public pay-as-you-go system to a system of private individual accounts in the early 1980s. Several other Latin American countries then followed suit, inspired both by Chile's reforms and by World Bank recommendations stressing compulsory government-mandated individual saving accounts. Individual accounts were subsequently introduced in a number of countries in Europe and Asia. Many are now re-evaluating these privatisations in an effort to 'reform the reform' to make these systems more efficient and equitable. This volume is the first to assess pension reforms in this new 'post-privatization' era. After a discussion on demographic trends in the foreword by Nobel laureate Robert W. Fogel, Section 1 of the book includes chapters on the role of pension system default options, the impact of gender, and a discussion of the World Bank's policies on pension reform. The chapter on the evidence from Chile's new social protection survey points to key lessons from the world's first privatization. Section 2 offers in-depth analysis of several significant reform initiatives in the hemisphere, and includes chapters on the United States, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil, Peru, Uruguay and Argentina. The volume provides an unparalleled account of the lessons from pension reform in the Americas, addressing the most pressing policy issues and highlighting a broad range of country experiences.

Reforming Pensions in Developing and Transition Countries

Reforming Pensions in Developing and Transition Countries PDF Author: K. Hujo
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137396113
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
This book moves beyond technical studies of pension systems by addressing the political economy of pension reform in different contexts. It provides insights into key issues related to pension policy and its developmental implications, drawing on selected country studies in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America.

US Pension Reform

US Pension Reform PDF Author: Martin Neil Baily
Publisher: Peterson Institute
ISBN: 0881325635
Category : Pensions
Languages : en
Pages : 534

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Book Description


Social Security Pension Reform in Europe

Social Security Pension Reform in Europe PDF Author: Martin Feldstein
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226241912
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 515

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Book Description
Social Security in the United States and in Europe is at a critical juncture. Through the essays assembled in Social Security Pension Reform in Europe, Martin Feldstein and Horst Siebert, along with a number of distinguished contributors, discuss the challenges facing Social Security reform in the aging societies of Europe. A remarkable range of European nations—Germany, France, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Hungary—have implemented or are about to implement mixed Social Security systems that combine a traditional defined benefit of the pay-as-you-go system with an individual retirement account defined contribution of a capital-funded system. The essays here highlight the problems that the European pension reform process faces and how it differs from that of the United States. This timely volume will significantly enrich the debate on pension reform worldwide.

Prospects for Social Security Reform

Prospects for Social Security Reform PDF Author: Olivia S. Mitchell
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 9780812234794
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 446

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Book Description
The United States social security system is the nation's largest social insurance program. As such, it has a far-reaching impact throughout the economy, influencing not only old-age economic security but also many behaviors, including corporate employment policy, retirement patterns, and personal saving. In the past, the system's universal coverage and generous benefits ensured popular support to a degree enjoyed by no other form of "big government" social spending. Yet over two-thirds of all Americans today believe that the social security system will face bankruptcy by the time they retire. The question of social security reform—how to reform the system or whether the system needs reform at all—is the subject of heated debate at all levels of government, in the media, and among workers, pensioners, and employers. Prospects for Social Security Reform informs the debate by exploring why the system is at a crossroads today and what to do about it. Contributors detail the size and nature of the problem, explain views of key "stakeholders" regarding reform options, and report new evidence on how reform might affect the economy. Research findings and public opinion polls are analyzed, as are lessons from other countries experimenting with new ways to deliver old-age benefit promises. No other volume includes as diverse and expert a set of perspectives on reform and privatization as those gathered here from economists, actuaries, employers, investment managers, and representatives of organized labor. Among its chapters is the path-breaking study "Social Security Money's Worth," the 1999 winner of the TIAA-CREF's Paul A. Samuelson Award for Outstanding Scholarly Writing on Lifelong Financial Security.

Reforming Pensions

Reforming Pensions PDF Author: Mr.N. A. Barr
Publisher: INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND
ISBN: 9781451856033
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 56

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Book Description
This paper discusses the strategic building blocks of pension reform. The early sections set out the simple economics of pensions and discuss a series of myths which have proved remarkably persistent. Subsequent sections draw together the conclusions for policy design from earlier theoretical discussion, set out the prerequisites which any pension reform must respect, and discuss the range of choices facing policymakers. The main conclusions are threefold: the key variable is effective government; from an economic perspective the difference between PAYG and funding is second order; and the range of potential choice over pension design is wide.

Reforming Pensions

Reforming Pensions PDF Author: N. A. Barr
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780199893461
Category : Pension trusts
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Mandatory pensions are a worldwide phenomenon. However, with fixed contribution rates, monthly benefits, and retirement ages, pension systems aren't consistent with three long-run trends: declining mortality and fertility, and earlier retirement. Many systems need reform. This book explains the economics of pension design.