February 2017

04Feb

An Evaluation of the Life Cycle Effects of Minimum Pensions on Retirement Behavior

By Sergi Jiménez-Martín & Alfonso R. Sánchez Martín In this paper we explore the effects of the minimum pension program on welfare and retirement in Spain. This is done with a stylized life cycle model which provides a convenient analytical characterization of optimal behavior. We use data from the Spanish Social Security to estimate the behavioral parameters of the model and then simulate the changes induced by the minimum pension in aggregate retirement patterns. The impact is substantial: there is...

February 4, 2017
Articles, Labor Market,
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04Feb

Private pension funds in Poland

By Lech Keller-Krawczyk This article takes a highly critical look at the pension system in Poland, which had been reformed after 1989 on the basis of the World Bank's 'three pillars' model of a combined state and private, mandatory and voluntary pensions system, despite evidence that the model is flawed and unobjective, being hinged on the inducements of cheaper credits for those countries adopting it. The author relates both the old and new pension systems in Poland, and describes the...

February 4, 2017
Articles, Corporate Governance, Investing, Labor Market,
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04Feb

Advancing the Ugandan Economy: A Personal Account

By Ezra Sabiti Suruma In 1973, when I returned from a seven-year tour of study in the United States to take up a teaching job at Makerere University (Kampala, Uganda), General Idi Amin was the president of Uganda and political parties were banned. There was no opportunity for anyone, including a young academic returning from study abroad, to participate in shaping the country’s political economy. The economy was starting to fail, and fear was spreading among the population because of...

February 4, 2017
Books, Corporate Governance, Regulation, System Sustainability, , ,
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04Feb

The Issue of Rural Banking and Microfinance Institutions (Chapter)

By Ezra Sabiti Suruma The first quarter century of Uganda’s independence from British colonial rule (1962–85) was characterized by internal conflicts, dictatorship, and economic disintegration. However, the subsequent years (1986–2012) were marked by relative political and economic stability as well as sustained economic growth. During this period of transition, Ezra Suruma held many high positions in the arena of Ugandan politics and economics and served with distinction as Uganda’s minister of finance and economic development from 2005 to 2009.Advancing the...

February 4, 2017
Books, Corporate Governance, Regulation, System Sustainability, , ,
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04Feb

Analysing the Performance of the Pension Fund Industry with a Stochastic Frontier Model: A Case Study for Portugal

The enhanced role of occupational and personal pension plans in providing retirement income raises issues concerning efficiency and performance. This paper evaluates the performance of Portuguese pension fund management companies from 1994 to 2003, using a Cobb-Douglas stochastic cost frontier model to generate their efficiency scores. We conclude that the price of labour, the price of capital-management services and the price of capital-premises, as well as profits, the number of participants, the number of closed funds and the decision...

February 4, 2017
Articles, Corporate Governance, Investing
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04Feb

Pensions at Work: Socially Responsible Investment of Union-Based Pension Funds

By Jack Quarter, Isla Carmichael & Sherida Ryan The concentrated nature of share ownership on the world’s capital markets means that large institutional investors – insurance companies, mutual funds, and pension funds – own the bulk of the world’s listed companies. In many countries, a significant portion of these shareholdings is held in workers’ retirement savings, pension funds, and other investment vehicles – workers’ capital. As beneficial owners of these deferred wages, workers are theindirectowners of a substantial portion of the...

February 4, 2017
Books, Corporate Governance, Investing
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04Feb

Living Faithfully in an Unjust World: Compassionate Care in Russia

By Melissa L. Caldwell This simple inscription graces the elegant bronze sculpture of a dog, foot raised in the air to scratch his neck, that rests in the entrance to Moscow’s Mendeleevskaia metro station. The dog commemorated in the sculpture was a stray, or more specifically, one of Moscow’s metro dogs, a uniquely Russian breed of canine that travels the city on public transportation, often snoozing undisturbed on subway and bus seats, and surviving on the food and makeshift shelters...

February 4, 2017
Books, Savings
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04Feb

Privatizing Pensions: The Transnational Campaign for Social Security Reform

By Mitchell A . Orenstein Most Americans know of President George W. Bush’s 2005 proposals for new pension reforms to privatize Social Security, but few are aware of a conversation that took place on September 11, 1997, between then Texas Governor Bush and José Piñera, a former Chilean Secretary of Labor and Social Security. Piñera is an internationally known advocate of private, individual pension savings accounts who led the effort to replace Chile’s social security system with individual accounts in...

February 4, 2017
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