The Selected Issues paper of the Netherlands provides an overview of the Dutch pension system. It examines the strengths and weaknesses of the existing bargaining model, compares the Dutch wage bargaining in different periods, examines the past macroeconomic performance of the Netherlands,...

With asset values falling sharply in recent years, many companies around the world are under pressure to restore the solvency of their defined-benefit pension plans. Will this lead to higher contributions? Will higher contributions increase labor costs and reduce employment? Does this mechanism...

This note reflects macroeconomic and fiscal forecasts presented with the April 2009 World Economic Outlook, as well as information on fiscal stimulus and financial and industrial sector support gathered through mid-May. It follows the request by G-20 leaders for the Fund to assess regularly the...

This paper discusses key findings of the Detailed Assessment of the Observance of the Insurance Core Principles for Denmark. Key recommendations arising from the assessment cover two main issues. First is the fact that the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority Finanstilsynet bases its system to...

This paper discusses key findings of the Financial System Stability Assessment for Namibia, including the Report on the Observance of Standards and Codes on Banking Supervision. The financial system of Namibia appears healthy, well-run, and resilient to plausible macroeconomic shocks. Namibia...

We study the behavior of private pension funds as large depositors in a banking system. Using panel data analysis, we examine whether, and if so how, pension funds influence market discipline in Argentina in the period 1998-2001. We find evidence that pension funds exert market discipline and...

We use reforms in the Swiss public retirement system to identify the responsiveness of retirement timing to financial incentives. A permanent reduction of retirement benefits by 3.4 percent induces more than 70 percent of females to postpone their retirement. The responsiveness of male workers,...

We investigate the responsiveness of individual retirement decisions to changes in financial incentives. The causal effect is identified based on the natural experiment generated by an institutional reform. The results of a binary retirement model are robust to alternative model specifications,...

I investigate the effect of income on mortality of the pensioners, com- paring three subsequent policy periods in Austria. The pensioners who retired in the second period received 25% lower pension than those in the first period. This reduction in income was removed in the third policy period....

We employ German Sample Survey Income data to examine income inequality and the financial situation of elderly citizens for the period from 1978 to 2003, focussing on differences between retired and non-retired elderly and between elderly with residence in the Old and the New German Laender....