February 2017

03Feb

Matching Contributions for Pensions

By Richard Hinz, Robert Holzmann, David Tuesta, Noriyuki Takayama Establishing robust, equitable, and effective social protection is essential to reducing poverty and boosting prosperity at all levels of development. The demographic transition that has already transformed most high-income societies will exert similar and growing pressures on others, reinforcing the role of pensions and savings for old age as a central pillar of social protection systems. Despite this increasing imperative, achieving full coverage and adequate benefits within a financially sustainable pension system...

February 3, 2017
Regulation,
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03Feb

The Challenge of Public Pension Reform in Advanced and Emerging Economies

By Benedict J. Celements, Mauricio Soto et. al. Pension reform is high on the policy agenda of many advanced and emerging market economies. In advanced economies the challenge is generally to contain future increases in public pension spending as the population ages. In emerging market economies, the challenges are often different. Where pension coverage is extensive, the issues are similar to those in advanced economies. Where pension coverage is low, the key challenge will be to expand coverage in a...

February 3, 2017
Regulation
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January 2017

12Jan

Trusts No More: Rethinking the Regulation of Retirement Savings in the United States

By Natalya Shnitser - The regulation of private and public pension plans in the United States begins with the premise that employer-sponsored plans resemble traditional donative, or gift, trusts. Accordingly, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) famously “imports” major principles of donative trust law for the regulation of private employer-sponsored pension plans. Statutes regulating state and local government pension plans likewise routinely invoke the structure and standards applicable to donative trusts. Judges, in turn, adjudicate by analogy...

January 12, 2017
Articles, Corporate Governance, Regulation, ,
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12Jan

Financial Regulations for Improving Financial Inclusion

By Stijn Claessens & Liliana Rojas-Suarez - As recently as 2011, only 42 percent of adult Kenyans had a financial account of any kind; by 2014, according to the Global Findex database (World Bank 2015), that number had risen to 75 percent, including 63 percent of the poorest two-fifths. In Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, the share of adults with financial accounts, either a traditional bank account or a mobile account, rose by nearly half over the same period. Many countries in other...

January 12, 2017
Regulation
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12Jan

Identification for Development: The Biometrics Revolution – Working Paper 315

By Alan Gelb and Julia Clark - Formal identification is a prerequisite for development in the modern world. The inability to authenticate oneself when interacting with the state—or with private entities such as banks—inhibits access to basic rights and services, including education, formal employment, financial services, voting, social transfers, and more. Unfortunately, under documentation is pervasive in the developing world. Civil registration systems are often absent or cover only a fraction of the population. In contrast, people in rich countries...

January 12, 2017
Labor Market, Regulation
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