February 2017

Taxing Pensions

By Pierre Pestieau and Helmuth Cremer There exists a wide variety of tax treatments of pensions across the world. And the reasons for such a range of regimes are not clear. This note reviews the general principles of pension taxes and analyses the theoretical foundations of why pension incomes ought to be taxed specifically. To do this, one has to distinguish between public and private pensions. The design of public pensions cannot be separated from the one of taxation. Regarding...

Pensions in Mexico A Long-Term Risk

By Victor M. Soria With the coming of economic globalization, over the last two decades, pre-existing problems in pension systems in practically all the countries of the world have sharpened. On the one hand, with increased life expectancy, the population pyramid now contains a larger number of retired persons and people ofretirement age; the increase in unemployment has lowered the number of contributors to social security systems; and on the other hand, financial liberalization and the economic adjustments brought by globalization...