Pension reform is a key policy challenge in Russia. This paper examines how pension spending could increase in Russia in the absence of reforms, quantifies the impact of some recent proposals, and suggests some alternatives that would ensure public pension benefits - relative to wages - not fall...

The Czech Republic has embarked on an ambitious tax reform and expenditure package to bring the deficit sustainably below 3 percent, and intends to reduce the deficit to 1 percent of GDP by 2012. To address the long-term fiscal challenge due to population aging, pension reform proposals are also...

This paper explores how privatizing a pension system can affect sovereign credit risk. For this purpose, it analyzes the importance that rating agencies give to implicit pension debt (IPD) in their assessments of sovereign creditworthiness. We find that rating agencies generally do not seem to...

Putting the pension system on a sustainable footing arguably remains the biggest challenge in Russia's economic policies. The debate about the policy options was hitherto constrained by the absence of general equilibrium analysis. This paper fills this gap by simulating their macroeconomic...

The demographic transition in the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) now underway is rapid compared with international experience, and emigration is playing a particularly large role. This paper describes and quantifies several factors which could magnify the challenge of pension reform....

This paper analyzes the economic rationale for adopting parametric pension reforms and reforms broadening the coverage of public health care in Colombia during 1993-2008. Parametric pension reforms have focused on increasing the retirement age and moderating replacement rates. The health system...

This paper analyzes various reform options for Japan's public pension in light of large fiscal consolidation needs of the country. The most attractive option is to increase the pension eligibility age in line with high and rising life expectancy. This would have a positive effect on long-run...

We compare the long-term output and current account effects of pension reforms that increase the retirement age with those of reforms that cut pension benefits, conditional on reforms achieving similar fiscal targets. We show the presence of a policy trade-off. Pension reforms that increase the...

Population aging in Korea will pose substantial challenges to the financial sustainability of its public pension system. Under current policies and plausible assumptions, public pension spending can increase by as much as 4 percent of GDP during 2020-70, while contribution revenue will largely...

In many countries, the regulations governing pension systems, hiring procedures, and job contracts differ between the public and private sectors. Public sector employees tend to have longer tenures and higher wages compared to workers in the private sector. As such, social security reforms can...