Librería Portfolio

The ongoing privatization of pensions - the shift from state to private responsibility for old age retirement income - raises fundamental issues of social and participatory rights. The recent financial market crisis makes the problematic nature of funded private pensions that fall short of expected returns dramatically clear. What have been the experiences in developed multipillar systems? What can be learned for those pensions systems currently under reform? This edited book compares the varieties of pension governance in ten European countries. Contrasting the experience of developed multipillar systems such as Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Switzerland with the recent shift toward private occupational and personal pensions in Belgium, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, and Sweden. The country chapters investigate how and why old age income responsibilities are being shifted to employers, unions, and individuals. They describe the changing public and private pension mix, and describe the particular features of the private occupational and personal pensions. In particular this book discusses four major questions: who is covered, what kind of benefits, who pays, and who governs? Three comparative analyses provide an additional value, describing the long-term institutional change from public to multipillar pension systems, the variations in regulation and governance of private pensions, and the consequences for income inequality in old age. This book combines the benefits of a reference work - ten up-to-date country studies of major pension systems in Europe - with three cross-national comparative empirical analyses that provide comprehensive information on important aspects of the reform development, societal governance, and social outcomes of pension systems.



Table of Contents

Part I: Comparing Pension Privatization in Europe
1:Introduction: Studying Pension Privatization in Europe, Bernhard Ebbinghaus
2:The Changing Public-Private Pension Mix in Europe: From Path Dependence to Path Departure, Bernhard Ebbinghaus and Mareike Gronwald
Part II: Bismarckian Late-Comers to Multipillar Pension Systems
3:Belgium: The Paradox of Persisting Voluntarism in a Corporatist Welfare State, Johan J. De Deken
4:France: Promoting Funded Pensions in Bismarckian Corporatism?, Marek Naczyk and Bruno Palier
5:Germany: Departing from Bismarckian Public Pensions, Bernhard Ebbinghaus, Mareike Gronwald and Tobias Wiß
6:Italy: From Bismarckian Pensions to Multipillarization under Adverse Conditions, Matteo Jessoula
Part III: Emergent Nordic Multipillar Pension Systems
7:Denmark: The Silent Revolution toward a Multipillar Pension System, Jørgen Goul Andersen
8:Finland: From Statutory Pension Dominance towards Voluntary Private Schemes, Olli Kangas and Päivi Luna
9:Sweden: A Viable Public-Private Pension System, Gabriella Sjögren Lindquist and Eskil Wadensjö
Part IV: Mature Multipillar Pension Systems
10:Great Britain: Exhausted Voluntarism - The Evolution of Britain´s Hybrid Pension Regime, Paul Bridgen and Traute Meyer
11:The Netherlands: Adapting a Multipillar Pension System to Demographic and Economic Change, Karen M. Anderson
12:Switzerland: Regulating a Public-Private Heritage of Multipillar Pension Governance, Giuliano Bonoli and Silja Häusermann
Part V: Comparing Pension Systems and their Outcome
13:The Governance and Regulation of Private Pensions in Europe, Bernhard Ebbinghaus and Tobias Wiß
14:The Public-Private Mix and Old Age Income Inequality in Europe, Bernhard Ebbinghaus and Jörg Neugschwender