In the context of a serious financial, and legal crisis, Argentina reformed its pension system in 1994, when a multi-pillar model with a funded scheme was introduced, and first pillar parameters, as minimum age and vesting requirements were tightened. The new system has a significant first...

This paper analyzes the link between firm size and the investment in job training by employers. Using a large firm level data set across 99 developing countries, we show that a strong and positive correlation in the investment in job training and firm size is a robust statistical finding both...

There is increasing concern about the vulnerability of poor and near-poor rural households, who have limited capabilities to manage risk and often resort to strategies that can lead to a vicious cycle of poverty. Household-related risk is ususally considered individual or private, but measures...

Conditional cash transfers are a departure from more traditional approaches to social assistance, that represents an innovative, and increasingly popular channel for the delivery of social services. Conditional cash transfers provide money to poor families, contingent upon certain behavior,...

Natural disasters have ahuge impact on social and economic welfare. Policies to manage them need to be integrated and well grounded to the specificities of natural hazards as well as local capacities in terms of fiscal, administrative and economic capabilities. A well designed natural disasters...

This paper summarizes the World Bank's experience in dealing with redundant (laid-off) workers. It identifies World Bank lending of 88 loans in 47 countries that have contained labor assistance to redundant workers related to enterprise restructuring or privatization since 1987. The paper...

This paper examines the evolution of the pension system in Britain. In particular, it focuses on the shift from pay-as-you-go, state-run defined-benefit pensions to individual, private-sector, funded defined-contribution accounts. It looks at three issues in this reform: the financing of the...

This paper solves and estimates a stochastic model of optimal inter-temporal behavior to assess how changes in the design of the unemployment benefits and pension systems in Brazil could affect savings rates, the share of time that individuals spend outside of the formal sector, and retirement...

This paper surveys 11 international comparative studies of poverty, income distribution, and the elderly. Although it focuses on OECD economies, some 44 countries are covered. The paper addresses a series of questions. What level are the incomes of the elderly relative to the population as a...

This paper will consider a range of consumer-oriented subsidy instruments, including general subsidies, and tax exemptions as well as targeted quotas. Section II discusses the distribution, or incidence of the subsidy expenditures for all these instruments. It focuses primarily on food as the...