Social Security Reform: Financial and Political Issues in International Perspective

Description

As population aging has become increasingly acute in many countries, the debate over how to reform often creaking public pension systems has gathered momentum. In many cases, this debate has become politicized and the focus on some of the underlying economic issues has been lost. This volume hopes to redress some of this imbalance. It begins by examining the rationale behind why public pension systems were introduced originally - out of fear that individuals do not adequately save for retirement. It then systematically examines different aspects of reforming these systems. It covers the fiscal repercussions of reform, the implications of the baby boom on asset returns in the years ahead, the political economy of the reform process, and finally the risk-sharing implications that are inherent in reform. An important additional goal of this volume is to make it accessible to as wide an audience as possible: students, academics, and policy makers.

Robin Brooks is an economist in the Financial Studies Division of the Research Department at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC. His research focuses on the growing importance of financial linkages across countries and their implications for risk reduction strategies in portfolio management. Before joining the IMF, Dr Brooks was a Research Fellow in the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, where he studied the effects of population aging on financial markets. Assaf Razin is the Mario-Henrique Simonsen Professor of Public Economics at Tel Aviv University and the Friedman Professor of International Economics at Cornell University. He is particularly known for his work on human capital growth, the economics of the family, public economics and international economics. Professor Razin has co-authored numerous books, including Fiscal Policies and Growth in the World Economy, Labor, Capital, and Finance: International Flows (Cambridge University Press, 2001), and the forthcoming The Decline of the Welfare State: Political Economics of Aging, Migration and Globalization.

'This volume is a valuable collection of essays ... authored by some of the foremost experts in the field, providing sophisticated research techniques as well as a well-rounded international perspective on the debate over social security reform. the book is well organized, providing arguments that are both cohesive and highly readable.' Journal of PEF