Cape Verde shifted from a socialist to a capitalistic model in the late 1980s. This shift enabled the population to benefit from rapid economic growth, but concerns have been expressed about a potential increase in inequality. Two household surveys with consumption data implemented in 1988–89...

Rwanda is facing a severe electricity crisis. Higher demand and production cost as well as a reduction in revenues in real terms have led to large operating losses for the electricity operator Electrogaz. In order to deal with this crisis, a doubling of electricity tariffs was recently approved,...

The main focus of this study is Rural Punjab and it contributes to regional poverty research in two ways; first, using a more recent household survey data, carried out in August 2007 by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), it provides fresh poverty estimates for the rural...

Europe’s pensions landscape has changed dramatically since the 1990s. This paper tries to assess better the impact of these changes using a broad social sustainability framework. Pension wealth estimates for a variety of hypothetical cases are used to assess the ability of systems to alleviate...

Successive reforms enacted since the 1990s have dramatically changed Europe’s pensions landscape. This paper tries to assess the impact of recent reforms on the ability of systems to alleviate poverty and maintain living standards, using estimates of pension wealth for a number of hypothetical...

Most assessments of pension sustainability focus on the projected fall in spending. However interest in the impact on adequacy, usually measured by replacement rates, is increasing. In this paper we show that replacement rates have significant defects, related to being point-in-time indicators...

Though the main benchmark used to assess pension reforms continues to be the expected resulting fall in future government spending, the impact of policy changes on pension adequacy is increasingly coming to the fore. As yet, there does not seem to be a broad consensus in policymaking circles and...

Since the 1990s reforms have changed substantially both the nature of state pension provision and the level of generosity. This article tries to assess the impact of these changes using estimates of pension wealth for a number of hypothetical cases. By focusing on all prospective pension...

The main focus of this study is Rural Punjab and it contributes to regional poverty research in two ways; first, using a more recent household survey data, carried out in August 2007 by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), it provides fresh poverty estimates for the rural...

In this lecture, I will try to start answering the question of whether the pension reforms enacted in Europe since the 1990s will prove to be sustainable. This broad question has embedded in it both theoretical and empirical sub-questions. On the theoretical side, I will need to see how best to...