Saving rates vary considerably across countries and over time. Policies that spur development are an indirect but effective way to raise private saving rates - which rise with the level and growth rate of real per capita income.Loayza, Schmidt-Hebbel, and Serveacute;n investigate the policy and...

Replacing a pay-as-you-go pension system with a fully funded scheme could eliminate the incentives (under the pay-as-you-go system) to informalize production and employment. Simulations of an endogenous-growth model suggest that long-term growth could increase substantially by such a reform....

It is well known that a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension system lowers saving, income, and welfare of future cohorts in a one-sector economy because it entails a transfer to the first cohorts of PAYG pensioners. Is the opposite result possible in a two-sector (formal-informal production) economy?...

Country experiences of old-age social security arrangements, and 15 research and policy design issues not addressed in the literature.Pension reform is spreading around the globe, from Latin America to the OECD countries, and major reform projects are being discussed in many other developing,...

Ten years of inflation targeting worldwide provide valuable lessons. Inflation targeters (ITers) have been very successful in meeting their inflation targets (ITs). Industrial output sacrifice during inflation stabilization and industrial output volatility has frequently been lowered after IT...

América Latina ha sido gravemente afectada por la crisis y la recesión internacional desde finales de 2008. En comparación con crisis anteriores, ¿cómo ha enfrentado América Latina esta crisis global?, ¿cuál ha sido el papel de los diferentes mecanismos de transmisión?, y ¿cómo las...

This paper draws on estimates of consumption functions for 13 developing countries to analyze the effectiveness of public policy in raising saving. First, it provides evidence from time-series and panel data on how liquidity constraints affect consumption functions. This suggests that a rise in...