The need to kick-start lending to the real sector in response to the global financial crisis is leading many countries to expand the role of state-owned financial institutions. The effectiveness of the support by these institutions depends in large part on the nature of the shock, on their...

Since the early 1980s, the structure of arrangements to provide retirement income has gradually moved from defined benefit (DB) systems to various types of arrangements in which the provision of pensions is backed by assets, either in individual accounts or in collective schemes. This change has...

This note adds to the existing literature by examining the enabling conditions for the creation of mandatory funded pension funds, and identifying additional factors that are important to consider in the early stages of the reform. The note stresses the importance of some factors that had...

Since the introduction of the KiwiSaver scheme in New Zealand in 2006, several countries have implemented, or are in the process of implementing, voluntary funded pension systems with automatic enrollment features. Since most of the literature has focused on countries with the common law...

This paper provides an assessment of the funded pension system and the quality of the regulatory framework for both accumulation and payout phase. It suggests that the lack of portfolio diversification may contribute in the future to low returns and poor pensions and provides a number of...

Defined contribution pension systems have faced criticism in the wake of the financial and economic crisis for not delivering adequate and sustainable pension incomes at retirement. Much of the problem has centered around the misalignment of pension fund management companies and the interests of...

The main goal of any pension system is to ensure that members receive an adequate pension income when they retire. Whilst traditional defined benefit (DB) pension plans set out what that pension income will be in advance and then strive to deliver it, the growing number of defined contribution...

This paper provides an assessment of the Polish funded pension system and the quality of the regulatory framework for the accumulation phase. There are two elements that distinguish the Polish pension fund portfolios from other reforming countries: the relatively high component of domestic...

The movement from a defined benefit to a defined contribution pension system has important implications in the area of portfolio allocation. While the focus of defined benefit pension funds is essentially in the long term, some defined contribution funds might have incentives to invest with...

After the financial crisis, some Central and Eastern Europe countries partially or totally reversed the pension reforms they had initiated in the previous two decades. In the presence of an aging population in the region, reductions in replacement rates will be the most likely adjustment...