This study examines the European Commission's 2011 call for advice to the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) on the improvement of the Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provision (IORP) Directive (the "IORP Directive"). Specifically, it uses both the EIOPA...

This paper presents an analysis of pension funds' performance in Poland and Hungary, two Central European countries characterized by strong regulation of their private pension fund industries. Thus, the paper extends the literature which has so far mostly focused on performance of pension fund...

While most economists agree that the world is facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, there is little agreement as to what caused it. Some have argued that the financial instability we are witnessing is due to irrational exuberance of market participants, fraud, greed, too...

This paper presents an analysis of pension funds' performance in Poland and Hungary, two Central European countries characterized by strong regulation of their private pension fund industries. Thus, the paper extends the literature which has so far mostly focused on performance of pension fund...

This paper discusses what is longevity risk, why it is important, approaches used by the West to manage longevity risk and what lessons can be learnt by Asian countries from the experiences of the West. Increasing and uncertain longevity has emerged as a key risk affecting individuals, pension...

The eurozone has a single short-term nominal interest rate, but monetary policy conditions measured by either real short-term interest rates or Taylor rule residuals varied substantially across countries in the period from 2003-2010. We use this cross-country variation in the (local) tightness...

The eurozone has a single short-term nominal interest rate, but monetary policy conditions measured by real short-term interest rates varied substantially across countries in the period 2003 - 2010. We use this cross-country variation in the (local) tightness of monetary policy to examine its...

The study explores the impact of the 'susu' scheme, an informal banking mechanism for daily or weekly collection of deposits prevalent on the West African markets, on small businesses in Ghana. Evidence gathered from the analysis of a randomly-drawn sample size of 1,600 small business owner...

The global financial crisis of 2007/2009 was triggered by the collapse of an asset price bubble in the housing market in the United States particularly in the sub-prime mortgage market. The collapse was soon followed by a credit crunch which was in turn followed by a liquidity crisis, a solvency...