Greece and Italy initiated efforts to improve public debt management and develop their domestic debt markets respectively in the late 1970s and mid-1980s. At that time, both countries suffered from large and rapidly growing public debt, excessive reliance on short-term bills held by commercial...

The report covers several types of structured finance with such capital market instruments as mortgage-backed securities, structured bond issues for infrastructure financing, securitization of small and medium enterprises (SME)-related assets, and securitization of loans to SMEs. The report also...

This paper discusses the mechanics and regulation of participating and unit-linked variable payout annuities. These annuities offer benefits that are not fixed in either nominal or real terms but depend on the performance of the fund or funds in which the underlying reserve assets are invested,...

Over the past decade or so, most Central and Eastern European countries have reformed their pension systems, significantly downsizing their public pillars and creating private pillars based on capitalization accounts. Early policy attention was focused on the accumulation phase but several...

This paper provides a comparative summary of the payout phase of pension systems in five countries -- Australia, Chile, Denmark, Sweden, and Switzerland. All five countries have large pension systems with mandatory or quasi-mandatory retirement savings schemes. But they exhibit important...

This paper examines the policy issues, constraints and options facing policymakers in promoting the development of sound markets for retirement products. It discusses the various risks faced by pensioners and the risk characteristics of alternative retirement products and also reviews the risks...

In the 1990s many emerging economies in Central Europe and Latin America initiated their pension reforms. While most analysis to date has focused on the accumulation phase, there are a number of lessons to be shared as countries start to prepare the retirement options for their contributors,...

In most countries, participation in a public pension system involving some kind of redistribution is compulsory, while participation in private pension schemes is voluntary. There are growing fears in many countries that the value of public pensions will not be sustained. There are similar fears...

This Note briefly examines the dynamic interaction that can develop between pension funds and capital markets. Pension funds are not only a source of long-term savings to support the development of bond and equity markets. They can also be a positive force for innovation, for corporate...

The dramatic events of the late 1990s, which followed a wave of financial crises going back to the early 1980s, brought to center stage the issue of financial sector policy in developing countries. Many recent books have presented a chronology and interpretation of the crises, but it is little...