Pension reforms that establish individual accounts will diminish the relative importance of the traditional state pension while creating a significant role for individual accounts in providing income for retirement. This paper surveys the policy issues this new role entails. It offers general...

Developing countries with VATs typically exempt a large number of goods and services. Following a brief discussion of the rationale for exemptions, this paper presents a formula for the base of a VAT with exemptions. Two basic adjustments must be made to the base without exemptions: subtraction...

This paper looks at the dramatic decline in global real interest rates in recent years from a historical perspective and examines the various factors that may account for this trend. We show that current levels of real interest rates on long-term bonds in advanced economies are not low by...

Annuity premiums are often assumed to be constant, although they can be expected to vary with the yield curve. Variations in premiums will become an important public policy issue as defined-contribution (DC) pension plans play an increasingly prominent role in providing retirement income. As DC...

The increased budget deficit caused by the privatization of a public pension plan does not imply a relaxation of the stance of fiscal policy. The reform''s impact on the fiscal stance and national saving depends primarily on its effect on the sum of explicit and implicit public debt and on the...