"The provision of annuities and other benefits during the decumulation phase DC pension plans raises major policy issues. As the private markets for annuities and disability benefits are not well developed even in the most advanced OECD countries, the resolution of these issues is likely to be a gradual process, with both countries and markets learning through experience" -- title page.

In the 1990s many emerging economies in Central Europe and Latin America initiated their pension reforms. While most analysis to date has focused on the accumulation phase, there are a number of lessons to be shared as countries start to prepare the retirement options for their contributors, with this book addressing these issues from a public policy perspective.

CD-ROM contains: Research and background information for the report.

This book collects ten complementary essays on different aspects of financial sector policy for developing and transitional economies. The essays, by leading theoreticians and practitioners, draw on the history and experience of financial sector policy reforms to derive lessons for the future. The collection is carefully chosen to cover the major contemporary issues, including both crisis avoidance and institution-building. The increasing importance of non-bank finance and of international linkages (including dollarization) for small economies are given special attention.

Personal pension plans transfer investment risk to participating workers and expose them to the volatility of financial returns. Simple financial strategies lower the volatility of replacement rates but at a significant cost in terms of lower replacement rates. The purchase of valuable annuities reduces the dispersion of replacement rates across generations without lowering their level.

This publication is a compilation of reports on research projects initiated, under way, or completed in fiscal year 2001 (July 1, 2000 through June 30, 2001). The abstracts cover 150 research projects from the World Bank and grouped under 11 major headings including poverty and social development, health and population, education, labor and employment, environment, infrastructure and urban development, and agriculture and rural development. The abstracts detail the questions addressed, the analytical methods used, the findings to date and their policy implications. Each abstract identifies the expected completion date of each project, the research team, and reports or publications produced.

Pension systems may have a different impact on gender because women are less likely than men to work in formal labor markets and earn lower wages when they do. Recent multipillar pension reforms tighten the link between payroll contributions and benefits, leading critics to argue that they will hurt women. In contrast, supporters of these reforms argue that it will help women by the removal of distortions that favored men and the better targeted redistributions in the new systems. To test these conflicting claims and to analyze more generally the gender effect of alternative pension systems, James, Edwards, and Wong examine the differential impact of the new and old systems in three Latin American countries--Argentina, Chile, and Mexico. Based on household survey data, they simulate the wage and employment histories of representative men and women, the pensions they are likely to generate under the new and old rules, and the relative gains or losses of men and women because of the reform. The authors find that women do accumulate private annuities that are only 30-40 percent those of men in the new systems. But this effect is mitigated by sharp targeting of the new public pillars toward low earners, many of whom are women, and by restrictions on payouts from the private pillars, particularly joint annuity requirements. As a result of these transfers, total lifetime retirement benefits for women reach 60-80 percent those of men, and for "full career" women they equal or exceed benefits of men. Also as a result, women are the biggest gainers from the pension reform. For women who receive these transfers, female/male ratios of lifetime benefits in the new systems exceed those in the old systems in all three countries. Private intra-household transfers from husband to wife in the form of joint annuities play the largest role. This paper is a product of the Gender Division, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network.