The author summarizes the major findings and recommendations in Averting the Old Age Crisis, describing problems in traditional pension systems and proposals for reform. Then she describes how those reforms are being implemented in many countries and examines empirical evidence about pension...

Most old people in developing countries are uninsured by formal social security programs. Economic growth is the key to increased coverage, but policy also matters, argues the author. Contributory insurance programs may not work for much of the population in developing economies. Moreover, the...

In the past decade, Latin America has taken the lead in structural pension reform which replaces a publicly managed pay-as-you-go defined-benefit system with a system of privately managed, fully funded defined-contribution accounts supplemented by a social safety net This arrangement is designed...

The current social security systems in many OECD countries were adopted before World War II, when private financial markets were underdeveloped or in disrepute. They expanded sharply in the 1950s and 1960s, when real wages and population were growing rapidly. Under those circumstances, it seemed...

High youth unemployment rates may be a signal of difficult labor market entry for youth or may reflect high churning. The European and United States literature finds the latter conclusion while the Latin American literature suggests the former. This paper uses panel data to examine whether Latin...

This paper solves and estimates a stochastic model of optimal inter-temporal behavior to assess how changes in the design of the unemployment benefits and pension systems in Brazil could affect savings rates, the share of time that individuals spend outside of the formal sector, and retirement...

The authors examine the factors affecting the transition to self-employment in Bosnia and Herzegovina, using the World Bank Living Standard Measurement Survey panel household survey for the years 2001-2004. In the beginning of the sample, the country changed its legal framework, with the primary...

Innovation is key to technology adoption and creation, and to explaining the vast differences in productivity across and within countries. Despite the central role of the entrepreneur in the innovation process, data limitations have restricted standard analysis of the determinants of innovation...

This paper studies how liberalization affects productivity growth using micro-level plant data. While previous studies have already shown the existence of a positive relationship between competition and economic performance, the novelty of this paper is that it analyzes not only the average...

Agricultural and other physically demanding sectors are important sources of growth in developing countries but prevalent diseases such as malaria adversely impact the productivity, labor supply, and choice of job tasks among workers by reducing physical capacity. This study identifies the...