Pension Liabilities and Public Finances in Bolivia: Evidence from a Reformer Country

Author(s):  
Jaime A. Garrón Bozo

In 1996 Bolivia undertook a radical pension reform, switching from an unfunded to a fully funded privately managed system. This paper analyzes the impact of the pension reform and post-reform pension policies (1997-2003) on public finances; it shows initial estimates for the transition cost, analyzes the main factors that increased the financial burden for the Treasury to unexpected levels, presents some public accounting considerations, and examines post-reform linkages between the Treasury and the new pension system. It concludes that the effect of the pension reform and post-reform pension policies on public finances has been two-fold: increasing considerably pension net liabilities, and inducing a higher fiscal deficit for the explicit report of the pension debt.

2020 ◽  
pp. 5-20

The impact of the Bulgarian pension sys­tem reform, implemented with the 2015 Social Insurance Code amendment act, on the im­plicit pension debt is the main focus of the present article. Holzmann’s methodology for calculation of open group pension liabilities is used (Holzmann et al., 2004). The long term forecasting of public pension fund revenues and expenditures is made possible through Professor John Wilkin’s actuarial model, which has been prepared within the scope of the World Bank’s assistance for Bulgaria in the implementation of the pension reform. The in­put in the model consists of demographic and macroeconomic suggestions as well as social security data for the 40-year period (2015- 2055) after pension reform enactment. The impact of the pension reform’s parameters on the implicit pension debt of the Bulgarian public pension system is elaborated through scenario analysis. Among the key findings of this article are the important role of the in­creasing of retirement age and serving period, as well as the contribution size for pension, for decreasing of implicit pension debt.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Borzutzky

This article analyses and compares President Bachelet’s successful efforts to reform the Chilean pension system in 2008 and her failure to achieve the same objective in 2017. The article addresses the impact of electoral promises, policy legacies, policy ideology, presidential power, the role of the private sector, and the role that the government coalitions had in the process of pension reform during the Bachelet administrations. We argue that the 2008 reform was possible because of Bachelet’s personal commitment to reform and the presence of a stable governing coalition that had the will and capacity to legislate. In the second administration, although the policy legacies and ideology had remained the same, the reform did not materialise due to intense conflict within the administration and within the government coalition, as well as conflict between the administration and the coalition. These conflicts, in turn, generated a vicious cycle responsible for Bachelet’s declining popularity, limited political capital, and reduced support for reform. A stagnant economy further undermined these efforts. In brief, this article argues that when assessing success and failure in pension policy reform it is important to analyse not only policy legacies and political ideology but also the strength of the executive, the cohesion of the governing coalition, and the country’s economic performance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (149) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Christoph Freudenberg ◽  
Frederik Toscani

Past reforms have put the Peruvian pension system on a largely fiscally sustainable path, but the system faces important challenges in providing adequate pension levels for a large share of the population. Using administrative microdata at the affiliate level, we project replacement rates in the defined benefit (DB) and defined contribution (DC) pillars over the next 30 years and simulate the impact of various reform scenarios on the average level and distribution of pensions. In the DB pillar, the regressive minimum contribution period should be re-thought, while in the DC pillar a broadening of the contribution base and/or an increase in contribution rates would help increase replacement rates relative to the baseline forecast of 25-33 percent. A higher net real rate of return than assumed in the baseline would also have a significant positive impact. In the medium-term, labor market reform to tackle informality, and a broad pension reform to restructure the system and avoid competition between the DB and DC pillars should be a priority. Given low pension coverage, having a strong non-contributory pillar will remain important for the foreseeable future.


2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maka Ghaniashvili

The paper focuses on the impact of the pandemic crisis on pension system in Georgia and analyzes the pros and cons of the ongoing pension reforms in the country. Decreased birth rates and increased life expectancy over the next decades will significantly change the picture of the age distribution of the population in many countries. As life expectancy increases and the birth rate decreases, more people retire than are added to the workforce. A change in the demographic picture necessitates fundamental pension reform. At the same time, the world is facing a crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The future is uncertain, both medically and financially. Despite optimistic forecasts, the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has begun in many countries which further increases the degree of uncertainty. Funded pension schemes suffer from the crisis because lower returns diminish their asset values, while low yields on public debt instruments increase the present value of their liabilities. This can generate both explicit fiscal risks— in the case of government guarantees—and implicit fiscal risks through lower private pension benefits or financial strain on the sponsoring employers. Our research is focused on the pension system and its development problems in Georgia, taking into account that since 2019, 1st January, the existing financial, demographic and economic challenges have determined the establishment of a new pension system. Main sources for the research are data gathered from the international organizations and local governmental and statistical data softwares. Our research results show that the pension reform launched in 2019 in Georgia is a significant step forward in reducing social imbalances and fiscal pressures in the medium / long term. However, for further development, it is important to systematically assess the effectiveness of pension policies, taking into account factors such as changes in demographic structure, expected fiscal spending, the inequality gap and the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.


Significance Following its strong results in the October mid-term election, the government has been pressing tax and pension reforms and a new fiscal accord with provincial governors; all except the pension reform must now go to the Senate. The measures may ease investor concerns that the government’s inability to reduce the fiscal deficit could end in a new debt default. Impacts The tax reform’s effect on high tax pressure will be moderate at best. Provinces’ ability to reduce distortive taxes will depend on their ability to cut public spending. Changes to the pension system will prove especially conflictive politically.


Subject Germany’s pension system. Significance The pension system is under increasing pressure from demographic change, low interest rates and generous government policies. Impacts Increasing tax liabilities on pension incomes could increase the prevalence of old-age poverty. Rising pension liabilities in the occupational pension pillar could dampen business investment in years ahead. The question of pension reform could be the undoing of the government when the coalition parties meet to evaluate their work in late 2019.


2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-122
Author(s):  
Paul Bridgen ◽  
Traute Meyer

Public service pensions have been a fundamental component of the British pension system in the post-war period and recent reform initiatives have caused political controversy. This article assesses the impact of the Conservative/Liberal government's public sector pension reform plans of 2011 for different public sector workers. It simulates their projected pension outcomes, assuming people contribute to the new system throughout their working lives. In particular, we examine the government's claim that the move away from final to average salary schemes will make pensions fairer for women and lower paid workers. The article shows that the reforms are indeed fair, if measured by the government's standards: retirement is delayed for all, but the lowest skilled and women lose least and some even gain higher pensions without paying proportionately more. Despite austerity, recent British pension reforms reflect a greater awareness of social inequality than many would expect and they have been built on more cross-party agreement than apparent at first sight.


Author(s):  
Lucy Jepchoge Rono ◽  
Julius Kibet Bitok ◽  
Gordon N Asamoah

This study focused on the analysis of the impact of RBA guidelines on the return on investments of both pension funds under management and those for pension schemes. A random sample of 175 fund trustees and a census of 13 fund managers from registered fund management companies participated in the survey. The questionnaire was administered through the drop-and-pick method. Data were analyzed using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) and summarized in descriptive statistics, such as mean, standard deviation, frequencies, percentages, and t-tests for mean differences were used. The study determined that annual investment return for retirement benefits schemes in the past three years ranged between 10 and 27.52%, sometimes falling below the annual inflation.  The Kenya pension funds are in compliance with the prescribed broad guidelines with regard to maximum percentages of total asset value of fund by the RBA Act. They are, however, moderately in compliance with the regulations requiring that that they maintain an actuarial solvency of 80% and above. The overall weighted returns before the implementation of RBA Guidelines was low (average scale of 1.9) while the weighted returns after the implementation of RBA Guidelines was high, at an average scale of 3.7. An analysis of the trend, however, showed that long-run performance has slowed down. The highest growth was realized for mortgage and cash returns as opposed to rights issues and bonus shares. There is need to fashion out the appropriate mix of reforms suitable for Kenya that will ensure the long-run sustainability of its pension systems. The challenge is for the country to adopt a unified, harmonized, and transparent regulatory framework that will integrate the pension system in order to ensure sustainability in its financing and mobilizing of adequate funds to cater for the ever-increasing population of beneficiaries in this regard, comprehensive pension reform policy with wider target radar and one that will consolidate and harmonize the various legislations touching on retirement benefits industry in line with Retirement Benefits Act. The Regulator needs to implement measures to ensure pension funds are insulated from inflationary and other risks.  An effective way is to institute a pension risk insurance fund that will underwrite and compensate such losses as will be prescribed. Further, there is need for a systematic indexation of benefits to inflation. RBA should strengthen its compliance and enforcement function in order to ensure that it appropriately deals with emerging present and future regulatory challenges.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (No. 1 Apr 2019) ◽  
pp. 17-38
Author(s):  
Jai Seop Lee

This research intends to identify the influential factors in the 2007 National Pension System (NPS) reform in Korea (the Republic of Korea) which drove the NPS toward a structural transformation. This research also examines the applicability of the theory of Clemens and Cook (1999) to the Korean policy shift, who argue that the innate driving force of a policy, an internal contradiction, can be a critical source of structural policy change. A literature review based case study was carried out in this research. The findings are as follows. Firstly, rising fiscal conservatism was the main determinant of the 2007 NPS structural reform. The processes and conditions of the reform documented were: the fiscal conservatism embedded in NPS generated serious policy problems and led to an accumulation of the internal contradictions within NPS by raising the question on its fundamental policy goal. As time passed without any self-correction mechanism with respect to the problematic policy, the NPS lost credibility in the eyes of the public and also lost policy legitimacy. At the same time, there was a competing policy alternative to the NPS. This was the universalistic tax-based Basic Old-Age Pension System. This has been a challenge to NPSin that it had been designed based on the social insurance financing principle. The pre-conditions for the structural NPS reform were fully complete and they could be exploited by self-interested political parties in the following policy-making stages. Secondly, the theoretical assumption that the internal contradiction of a policy can be a decisive power for structural transformation, as suggested by Clemens and Cook (1999) among others, was proven to be theoretically and practically accurate in the Korean public pension reform case.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-44
Author(s):  
Liliya Barannyk

The article analyzes pension provision development in the world and the problems of its implementation under the globalization challenges. The main reasons for considering pension provision as a global problem are specified. It is noted that the negative manifestations of globalization are inherent in the Ukrainian practice of pension provision. The purpose of the paper is to study the world’s experience in reforming national pension systems under increasing global negative trends. The research was conducted using the methods of scientific knowledge: comparison and generalization – to establish the essential differences in approaches to the globalization processes studying; analysis and synthesis – to identify regularities in economic development and their determination of social consequences; historical and logical, as well as statistical methods. The article considers some countries’ experience in improving the practice of pension provision. It was established that pension reform was aimed at making the pension age most upon the individual achievements of an employee (pension insurance record, salary, deductions, other personal preferences). In most developed countries, pension funds are provided from three sources: state pension funds, corporate sector pensions and individual pensions received under a contract of personal voluntary pension accumulative insurance. Further development of the pension system in Ukraine should be provided due to the introduction of its second level. As a result of the study, it was found out that global challenges are problems that hinder the normal course of human development. They make a particular negative impact on pension provision. The search for methods to neutralize or mitigate the effects of global challenges has led many countries to introduce a three-tier pension system that involves funding from various sources.


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