Pensions: More Information, Less Ideology

Tito Boeri holds a Ph.D. in Economics from New York University; he has been senior economist at the OECD from 1987 to 1996. Currently he is Professor of Economics at Bocconi University, Milan. Axel Borsch-Supan is Director of the Mannheim Research Institute for the Economics of Aging. He received a Ph.D. from MIT and taught at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government before he moved back to Germany. Agar Brugiavini is Professor of Economics at the University of 'Ca'Foscari' of Venice, Italy. She obtained a Ph.D. in Economics at the London School of Economics, United Kingdom and was recently awarded a Fulbright Fellowship at Northwestern University, USA. Richard Disney is Professor of Economics at the University of Nottingham, a Research Fellow of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, London, and a Director of Axia Economics. He has acted as a consultant to OECD and the World Bank. Arie Kapteyn is a senior economist at RAND. Before that he was the director of CentER at Tilburg University and professor of economics. Franco Peracchi (Ph.D., Princeton University, 1987) is a Professor of Econometrics at Tor Vergata University in Rome.

• 1. Introduction.- 2. How Accurate Are Demographic Projections Used in Forecasting Pension Expenditure?.- 3. Early retirement: Reasons and Consequences.- 4. OECD Experience with Projecting Age-Related Expenditure.- 5. Population ageing and the Sustainability of Public Finance in EMU.- 6. How Should we Measure pension Liabilities in EU Countries?.- 7. What We Know and We do not Know about the Willingness to Provide Self-financed Old-Age Insurance.- 8. Health and Social Welfare Implications of an Ageing Population: What Are the Uncertainties?.- 9. Aging in Europe: What Can We Learn from the Europanel?.- 10. The Appeal to Prodi.