The present paper reviews key issues in pension design and pension reform encountered all across the world. The paper heavily refers to the recent U.S. Social Security reform debate in general and to the Personal Retirement Accounts proposal in particular. A particular emphasis is put on...

The paper provides a selective survey of methods and findings concerning the impact of tax and welfare policies on employment, unemployment, and economic growth in OECD countries. The paper examines a number of facets of tax and welfare policy and concludes that cross-country macroeconomic...

This Selected Issues paper analyzes the macroeconomic impact of workers’ remittances on Moldova. The paper focuses on Moldova’s labor emigration since the late-1990s using survey data designed to shed light on the economic and social consequences of migration. The survey results...

This paper focuses on the investment behavior of pension funds in developed and emerging market countries. First, it analyzes the main determinants of the emerging market asset allocation of pension funds in developed countries. Second, it assesses how pension funds in emerging markets have...

The French economy weathered global crisis better than most of its peers. The authorities have taken important policy actions to stabilize the financial system and have implemented suitable fiscal stimulus to cushion the downturn. Executive Directors welcomed the policy, which aims to strengthen...

This 2006 Article IV Consultation highlights that Italy’s economy is enjoying a broad-based, if comparatively modest, cyclical upswing. Output is estimated to have grown by 1¾ percent in 2006—the strongest pace since the beginning of the decade. Inflation is close to that of the...

The technical note on Mexico’s Financial Sector Assessment Program update analyzes that the private pension system’s regulator in Mexico has introduced innovate rules. Mexico, as with many other countries in Latin America, has adopted an individual capitalization pension system....

This Selected Issues paper for the Russian Federation discusses existing empirical efforts to measure the determinants of cross-country financial integration. Empirical studies that have adopted the gravity-model framework have found that it is generally successful in explaining bilateral...

Putting the pension system on a sustainable footing arguably remains the biggest challenge in Russia's economic policies. The debate about the policy options was hitherto constrained by the absence of general equilibrium analysis. This paper fills this gap by simulating their macroeconomic...

The Czech Republic has embarked on an ambitious tax reform and expenditure package to bring the deficit sustainably below 3 percent, and intends to reduce the deficit to 1 percent of GDP by 2012. To address the long-term fiscal challenge due to population aging, pension reform proposals are also...