Are Governments Overextended?
Assessing the spectrum of a government’s debts and its exposure to risk
Peter S. Heller
Volume 5, Number 4, 2004, pages 1 - 31
Have government debt levels reached dangerous levels? Certainly, for some
countries, the data would suggest so. However, this paper will argue that for
many governments, the amount of explicit debt on their balance sheets seriously
understates the magnitude of their future fiscal obligations. Thi ... Read more
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Demographics and Pension Reforms in the Major Central and Eastern European Countries
Dieter Bräuninger
Volume 4, Number 1, 2003, pages 117 - 132
Today in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries there are barely 30
pensioners for every 100 persons of working age. By 2050, the number could rise
to almost 80 pensioners. So far Poland has responded the most rigorously to the
challenge, establishing a modern three-pillar pension syste ... Read more
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Demographic Risk in Industrial Societies
Independent population forecasts for the G-7 countries
Sylvester J. Schieber & Paul S. Hewitt
Volume 1, Number 4, 2000, pages 27 - 72
There is a growing awareness of the aging of populations around the world and the implications for national retirement programs. In most cases, estimates of population aging are based on fixed assumptions about fertility, improvements in life expectancy, and immigration. In most countries, however ... Read more
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European Pension Reforms
A study by Merrill Lynch
Jan Mantel & David Bowers
Volume 1, Number 1, 2000, pages 103 - 138
Are the present pension systems in Europe substainable? Can the pensions time bomb caused by demographic changes be defused? This study describes developments in Europe, but the theory, the problems and the solutions are similar for most developed nations in the rest of the world. The combination of ... Read more
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Pension Reform in Germany
To fund or not to fund
Axel Börsch-Supan
Volume 1, Number 1, 2000, pages 81 - 101
German public retirement insurance is in many respects an extreme example of the typical European pay-as-you-go pension system because almost 85% of retirement income stems from this system and only 15% comes from private sources such as funded pensions, labour income, and family transfers. Public r ... Read more
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The Public/Private Mix in UK Pension Policy
Phil Agulnik & Nicholas Barr
Volume 1, Number 1, 2000, pages 69 - 80
The UK government aims to shift the balance between public (Pay-As-You-Go) and private (funded) pensions from 60:40 today to 40:60 by 2050 (UK DSS 1998). What is the economic rationale for this shift? Funding pensions may have a positive effect on economic growth and the long-term sustainability of ... Read more
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Achieving the goals of UK Pension Reform
Frank Field
Volume 1, Number 1, 2000, pages 61 - 68
There is an inevitable tension between the aim of providing enough income in retirement for those genuinely unable to build up a sufficiently large fund of their own and the aim of preserving people’s incentives to save for their own retirement. The author argues that if the current UK government’s ... Read more
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