This Selected Issues paper investigates the possible contribution of activation strategies—in a broad sense—to improve employment rates in Finland. It summarizes recent labor market developments in Finland, and investigates respectively the limitation of current unemployment and...

It is vital to achieve both high levels of sustained, long lasting growth and better income distribution through the Accelerated Growth Strategy in Senegal. In terms of macroeconomic performance, the annual average growth rate dropped owing to exogenous shocks and low productivity in the...

This Selected Issues paper reviews recent developments in growth and employment in Bulgaria and highlights key constraints to growth suggested by cross-country competitiveness studies. Bulgaria’s GDP has grown substantially since economic and financial stabilization in 1997. The global...

This Selected Issues paper on Panama explores the current situation and trends of the Caja del Seguro Social (CSS) in Panama. The autonomy is embedded in its Organic Law, which also provides the agency with the right to have separate funds from the central government. The slowdown in economic...

This Selected Issues paper of the United Kingdom analyzes the official projections of public pension spending and risks, as well as the strategy to increase private pension provision. It provides a comparison of stylized facts regarding business cycle developments in the three economies, and an...

The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) has been developed for eradicating poverty in Armenia. It analyzes the poverty situation of Armenia, and evaluates the methodology and methodological issues. It discusses the PRSP goals, main policy directions, solution to poverty, and the reduction of...

This paper reviews Uzbekistan’s Interim Welfare Improvement Strategy Paper (I-WISP). I-WISP defines the main directions and measures aimed at improving living standards and reducing poverty among the population of Uzbekistan for 2005–10. The strategy is designed to further expand...

The Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Program (EDPRP) was developed with the active participation and support of society, executive authorities, nongovernment organizations, academia, businessmen, and donors. The study additionally provides coordinated mechanisms for bilateral and...

This Selected Issues paper highlights that the authorities in the Republic of Korea recognize the pension policy challenges ahead, and a first wave of reforms has already been launched. Despite the reforms to date, much remains to be done. Without further reforms, the public pension systems in...

Analysts agree that raising national saving is one of the key objectives of social security reform in the United States. Hence, to judge the merits of proposals requires a comparison of saving responses. The paper outlines the difficulties involved in making those comparisons, which arise from...