Averting the Funding-Gap Crisis: East European Pension Reforms since 2008

Abstract

This paper analyses the post-2008 pension reforms in Central and East European Countries. The economic crisis revealed the unresolved problems in the implementation of previous reforms: the financing of the transformation costs. The reforms thus reacted to the legacies of past choices as well as to the exceptional circumstances of the crisis in their attempts to solve the funding-gap issue. An interplay of fiscal constraints and political conditions shaped the variety of reform outcomes.

Keywords: pensions, pension privatization, funding gap, transition costs, Central and Eastern Europe

JEL Classification: H55