The main purpose of this paper is to examine the growing use of derivatives by Danish pension institutions as a risk management tool to hedge embedded options on their balance sheets. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s it was a widespread practice for Danish pension institutions to guarantee a...

Chile's success with pension reform in the early 1980s and the continuing financial pressures facing the social security systems of many developing (and some industrial) countries have elicited considerable interest in the mechanics of pension systems that are based on fully funded individual...

Directed credit programs were a major tool of development in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s, their usefulness was reconsidered. Experience in most countries showed that they stimulated capital-intensive projects, that preferential funds were often (mis)used for nonpriority purposes, that a...

The Jordanian insurance market has been free from extensive state ownership and pervasive premium, product, investment, and reinsurance controls. However, these positive features have been marred by the licensing of a large number of private companies, often on political rather than professional...

Japan and Korea have long been associated with extensive, generally successful government intervention in the financial system. The authors survey the literature available in English on the operation and effectiveness of credit policies in these two countries. They divide the literature on the...

Contractual savings institutions include national provident funds, life insurance companies, private pension funds, and funded social pension insurance systems. They have long-term liabilities and stable cash flows and are therefore ideal providers of term finance, not only to government and...

Current issues in banking policy range from the need to construct basic institutions and incentive structures in transition economies, to the challenges posed by the increasingly complex interactions involved in contemporary banking. The authors of this report outline the basic regulatory...