At present, the question of how national pension or retirement payment systems should be organised is being hotly debated in various countries, and opinions vary widely as to what should be regarded as the optimal design for such systems. It appears to the authors of this paper that in this...

This paper provides an overview of conceptual issues and recent research findings concerning the structure and the role of financial systems and an introduction into the new research area of comparative financial systems. The authors start by pointing out the importance of financial systems in...

The financial crisis of 2007-08 has stressed the importance of a sound financial system. Unlike other studies weighing the pros and cons of market versus bank-based systems, this paper investigates whether the main elements of the German financial system can be regarded as complementary and...