Rethinking the Welfare State

Edited by the late Martin Rein, formerly Professor of Social Policy, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US and Winfried Schmähl, Professor of Economics and Director, Economic Department, Centre for Social Policy Research, University of Bremen, Germany

• Contents: Introduction Part I: The Experience of Mature Welfare States in Western Economies A. Contracting Out: The Experience in the United Kingdom and Japan 1. Contracting Out of the State Pension System: The British Experience of Carrots and Sticks 2. The Relationship between the Role of the Corporate Pension and the Public Pension Plan in Japan B. Mandating of Contractual Agreements: Australia, Switzerland and the Netherlands 3. Reforming Pensions: The Australian Experience 4. The Institutionalization of the Swiss Multi-pillar Pension System 5. The Quality of the Dutch Pension System: Will it be Sustainable in the Twenty-first Century? C. Carve-outs: Germany, USA and Swedish Financial Accounts 6. Paradigm Shift in German Pension Policy: Measures Aiming at a New Public–Private Mix and their Effects 7. Individual Accounts and the Continuing Debate over Social Security Reform in the United States 8. Public Pension Reform and Contractual Agreements in Sweden: From Defined Benefit to Defined Contribution D. Pathways Towards a Mixed Public–Private Pension System 9. How Societies Mix Public and Private Spheres in their Pension Systems 10. Whose Money is it Anyhow? Governance and Social Investment in Collective Investment Funds Part II: Economies in Transition and Latin America 11. Home-made Pension Reforms in Central and Eastern Europe and the Evolution of the World Bank Approach to Modern Pension Systems 12. Public and Private Mix in the Polish Pension System 13. Conflicting Interests in Shaping Hungary’s New Private Pension Scheme 14. Latin American and East European Pension Reforms: Accounting for a Paradigm Shift Part III: The Public–Private Mix and Wellbeing in Aged Households 15. The Public–Private Mix of Retirement Income in Nine OECD Countries: Some Evidence from Micro Data and an Exploration of its Implications 16. Income Packaging and Economic Wellbeing in the Last Stage of the Working Career Index

'This first comprehensive analysis of public-private mixings discovers pension systems as rather flexible 'hybrid forms' not locked in as "uniform types". The balance shifts towards extended coverage of private pensions or functional privatization of public pensions - the private increasingly substituted for the public, and the contribution-benefit link is forged closer. What does the future hold? Surely, more income inequality in old age - unless "the rest of society" is already characterized by low poverty rates and low inequality, or unless active political design of the public-private mix compensates for social polarization, preventing a 21st century return of "the two nations". The modern state may "devolve" delivery of benefits - but an ageing electorate will still hold the state responsible for designing the requisite mix.'