Pension systems may have a different impact on gender because women are less likely than men to work in formal labor markets and earn lower wages when they do. Recent multipillar pension reforms tighten the link between payroll contributions and benefits, leading critics to argue that they will...

The pension reforms being undertaken in Latin America seem to be improving efficiency and growth, but they should also be designed to improve equity. It is possible for pension reform to improve both equity and efficiency - producing a win-win situation rather than a tradeoff.In the past decade,...

Initial empirical investigations suggest that countries concerned about growth should consider pension reform a potentially powerful tool for improving the welfare of both old and young.James summarizes the major findings and recommendations in Averting the Old Age Crisis, describing problems in...

This paper uses a stochastic cost frontier to examine the scale economies, cost efficiencies, and technological change of three payment instruments (check, ACH, and Fedwire processing) provided by the Federal Reserve over the period 1990-1994. We find evidence of substantial scale economies and...

Frontier cost and production functions are used to examine the effects of ownership on intrafirm differences in technical, cost, and allocative efficiency in the Indian sugar processing industry. Cooperatives are found to be as or more efficient than their counterparts. The results suggest that...

One of the biggest criticisms leveled at defined contribution individual account (IA) components of social security systems is that they are too expensive. This paper investigates the cost-effectiveness of three options for constructing funded social security pillars: 1) IA's invested in the...

What is the most cost-effective way to organize individual accounts that are part of a mandatory social security system? Defined-contribution individual account components of social security systems are criticized for being too expensive. The authors investigate the cost-effectiveness of two...