The expansion of deposit insurance and introduction of debt guarantees have played a crucial role in containing the financial crisis while giving governments time to develop suitable policy responses. But these measures do not address the root causes of the crisis, and they lead to competitive...

In most countries, participation in a public pension system involving some kind of redistribution is compulsory, while participation in private pension schemes is voluntary. There are growing fears in many countries that the value of public pensions will not be sustained. There are similar fears...

This Note briefly examines the dynamic interaction that can develop between pension funds and capital markets. Pension funds are not only a source of long-term savings to support the development of bond and equity markets. They can also be a positive force for innovation, for corporate...

The dramatic events of the late 1990s, which followed a wave of financial crises going back to the early 1980s, brought to center stage the issue of financial sector policy in developing countries. Many recent books have presented a chronology and interpretation of the crises, but it is little...

This paper discusses urban services finance in the Latin American context of rapid urbanization, severe fiscal constraints and democratization of administrative systems. Analyzing the situation in thirteen different countries, it draws several conclusions which may be helpful in the design of...

The Danish ATP (Arbejdmarkedets Tillaegs Pension or Labor Market Supplementary Pension) fund is a public pension fund that was created in 1964 to complement the universal pension benefit that is financed from general tax revenues and is paid to all old-age residents. When it was created,...

Public pension funds have the potential to benefit from low operating costs because they enjoy economies of scale and avoid large marketing costs. But this important advantage has in most countries been dissipated by poor investment performance. The latter has been attributed to a weak...

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...