Pension Reform
Price:
$29.95 (06)Description
This book is an abridgement of Barr and Diamond's Reforming Pensions: Principles and Policy Choices (OUP, 2008). It begins with the introduction to the earlier book, includes the concluding chapters to the sections on principles and on policy choices and the concluding policy chapter to the book. It summarizes the Chile and China chapters into a section of five pages. It presents material from some of the boxes of the longer book. While the longer book remains as a definitive and detailed analysis of pension reform, this new, shorter book conveys the message and conclusions to policy makers, journalists writing for the general public, and students being introduced to social security and other pension policy.The topic being condensed and summarized here is described at length in the earlier book. It stems from rapidly changing economic conditions and dramatic increases in life expectancy. Newspaper headlines across the globe anticipate again and again a massive rupture of social security and retirement systems. With public fears on the rise, officials in many countries under pressure to solve problems quickly are turning their backs on traditional pay-as-you-go systems in favor of privately financed retirement plans. Barr and Diamond demonstrate that in the age of globalization these problems are no longer simply domestic problems. Because trade borders are becoming increasingly open and digital transactions are hastily erasing national economic boundaries, countries are no longer able to act independently in setting pension policies. These problems are particularly exacerbated in China, a state where massive restructuring of state-owned enterprises and comparatively recent dynamic entry into global markets have already taxed a system whose enormous burden is to support the retirement of the world's largest national population. The authors address these issues comprehensively in a thorough survey of pension economic principles and application to China.
Reviews
"This volume distills the accumulated experience of two of the world's leading experts on pension policy. It reports on how a broad cross-section of nations around the globe have grappled with the varied and conflicting objectives of national pension programs. It is a splendid example of something all too rare--the marriage of the best of economic theory and politically and institutionally sensitive observational experience."--Henry J. Aaron, Bruce and Virginia MacLaury Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
"I love this book. It is a concise and brilliant analysis of pension reform around the world. I recommend it as a primer for anyone interested in understanding the key issues and policy alternatives."--Zvi Bodie, Norman and Adele Barron Professor of Management, Boston University
Praise for Reforming Pensions: Principles and Policy Choices
"Two of the finest minds in the economics profession lucidly explain the theory and practice of pensions. They uncover the various trade-offs in designing and reforming pension systems in an imperfect world. While difficult, good reforms appear to be possible. I wish that this book had been available when I became interested in pensions. It would have saved me a lot of time and energy."---Lans Bovenberg, Scientific Director, Netspar, Tilburg University
Praise for Reforming Pensions: Principles and Policy Choices
"This is a wonderful book. Two very smart economists, steeped in theory and exposure to real-life pension issues, lay out the principles for good pension reform. They emphasize that pensions have multiple purposes-consumption smoothing, poverty relief, insurance, and redistribution, that we live in a 'second-best' world, and that, because countries vary significantly in their stage of development, fiscal capacities, and administrative capabilities, there is no single best pension design. Yet using a host of international examples, the authors demonstrate how sound economic principles lead to good pension systems and how analytical errors lead to trouble. This sophisticated yet highly readable volume should serve as a road map for any country embarking on pension reform."--Alicia H. Munnell, Director, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College
About the Author(s)
Nicholas Barr is Professor of Public Economics at the London School of Economics and the author of numerous books and articles including The Economics of the Welfare State
. He has worked for the World Bank, been a Visiting Scholar at the IMF, and has advised governments on pensions and on higher education finance in the post-communist countries, Australia, Chile, China, Hungary, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK.
Peter Diamond is an Institute Professor and professor of economics at MIT and co-author, with Peter Orszag, of Saving Social Security: A Balanced Approach
. He has been President of the American Economic Association, of the Econometric Society, and of the National Academy of Social Insurance. He has consulted to the World Bank and written about social security in Chile, China, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK and the US.
