Introducing individual retirement accounts has a positive incentive effect that increases the share of the economically active population contributing to the reformed pension system. But this effect occurs only gradually as employers and workers become familiar with the new set of social...

Nations around the world (both large and small, rich and poor) are engaged in debate over how to reform their social security systems and care for the aged. For many countries this debate requires speculation on hypothetical scenarios, but in Latin America a rich body of experience on social...

Empirical analysis of two decades of pioneering pension and social security reform in Latin America and the Caribbean shows that much has been achieved, but that critical challenges remain. In tackling this unfinished agenda, a great deal can be learned from the reform experience of countries in...

In the past decade, many Latin American governments have radically restructured their old age income security systems, following the lead of Chile, which undertook its major pension reform in 1981. The defining characteristic of the reforms has been a shift in the basis of public pensions from...