Edward Palmer – författare

This book documents the creation and evaluation of the Al Manaahil television series, which set out to teach Arabic language and reading skills to Arab children of elementary-school age. It also discusses the economics of television in education.

This book documents the creation and evaluation of the Al Manaahil television series, which set out to teach Arabic language and reading skills to Arab children of elementary-school age. It also discusses the economics of television in education.

Nonfinancial Defined Contribution (NDC) schemes are now in their teens. The new pension concept was born in the early 1990s, implemented from the mid-1990s in Italy, Latvia, Poland and Sweden, legislated most recently in Norway and Egypt and serves as inspiration for other reform countries. This innovative unfunded individual account scheme created high hopes at a time when the world seemed to have been locked into a stalemate between piecemeal reforms of ailing traditional defined benefit schemes and introducing pre-funded financial account schemes.The experiences and conceptual issues of NDC in its childhood were reviewed in a prior anthology (Holzmann and Palmer, 2006). This new anthology serves to review its adolescence and with the aim of contributing to a successful adulthood. To this end the book offers a deep and comprehensive review of the experience of countries where NDC schemes have been in place for a decade or more, takes stock of the discussions of the place of NDCs in the world of pension reform, and addresses in detail important issues related to implementation and design, such as the of the “NDC story”, making transparent the legacy costs, financial accounting, balancing, creation of a reserve fund, gender, and longevity. The book also contains analyses of the pros and cons of NDC contra FDC and a typical paygo DB scheme in two Latin American countries. The key policy conclusions include: (i) NDC schemes work well (as documented by the experience of Italy, Latvia, Poland and Sweden during the crisis) but there is room to make them work even better; (ii) Go for an immediate transition to the new scheme to avoid future problems; (iii) Identify the legacy costs and their explicit financing during the transition as they will hit you otherwise soon; (iv) Adopt an explicit stabilising mechanism to guarantee solvency; (v) Establish a reserve fund to guarantee liquidity; (vi) Elaborate an explicit mechanism to share the systemic longevity risk; and, last but not least; (vii) Address the gender implications of NDC with deeper analysis and open political discourse.

Offering public pensions with an account scheme that pays out what one paidin plus interest, and that keeps the system financially sound while not using financial markets has emerged as a reform benchmark for all pension schemes worldwide. The publication analyses country experiences, design and operational challenges, and solutions.

Offering public pensions with an account scheme that pays out what one paidin plus interest, and that keeps the system financially sound while not using financial markets has emerged as a reform benchmark for all pension schemes worldwide. The publication analyzes country experiences, design and operational challenges, and solutions.

Det har skrivits mycket om behovet av att reformera det svenska trygghetssystemet de senaste åren. Bakgrunden är bl.a. önskan att minska det som kommit att kallas utanförskap, dvs. att få arbetslösa och långtidssjukskrivna tillbaka på arbetsmarknaden. Syftet har också varit att långsiktigt öka antalet arbetade timmar i ekonomin för att därigenom ha bättre möjlighet att finansiera välfärden i framtiden. En aspekt som än så länge inte fått så mycket uppmärksamhet är deltidsförmånerna. Till skillnad från många andra länder kan man i Sverige få deltidsersättning från de flesta socialförsäkringar, a-kassa inräknad. Deltidsersättningar motiveras med att de stöttar arbetslinjen det är bättre att arbeta lite än att inte arbeta alls. Men de kan också leda till inlåsning om deltidsrelationen blir permanent. Resultatet kan med andra ord bli antingen fler eller färre timmar, beroende på vilken av effekterna som dominerar. Välfärd på deltid går igenom omfattningen av deltidsersättningar i de olika trygghetssystemen och presenterar vad forskningen vet om deltidsförmånernas påverkan på arbetsutbudet. Författarna diskuterar också kopplingar mellan frivilligt och ofrivilligt deltidsarbete. Kan det vara så att en stor efterfrågan på deltidstjänster, framför allt hos kvinnor med småbarn, bidrar till att delar av arbetsmarknaden anpassar sig till deltidsarbete, vilket i sin tur ger ofrivilligt deltidsarbete som följd? Boken avslutas med en uppmaning till politikerna att hitta en bättre balans mellan att uppmuntra till deltidsarbete i vissa livssituationer men inte i andra. Laura Hartman, fil.dr i nationalekonomi, är verksam vid Institutet för arbetsmarknadspolitisk utvärdering, IFAU, och extern forskningsledare på SNS. 7