Enlargement: The Challenge of Migration from the New Member States

Wirtschaftsintegration, EU-Erweiterung, Wirtschaftspolitik, Mobilität, Europäische Wirtschafts- und Währungsunion, Economic integration, EU enlargement, Economic policy, Mobility, European Economic and Monetary Union

Going beyond the Nairobi attack: the psycho-social response

LSE’s Victoria de Menil says that no time should be wasted in putting in place a comprehensive response for new and existing mental health and social needs following the shopping mall attack

Romania’s Pension System: The Weight of the Past

In Romania before 1989, as elsewhere in the Soviet world, retirement support was one of the few rewards that the regime offered its citizens. Retirement provisions were based exclusively transfers, through the State, from the current working population to the pensioners. Technically, the system was a Pay As You Go System. The difference was that retirement provisions, like every other facet of the economy, were planned. Workers did not choose, but were told, when to retire. Early retirment was not envisioned. Sick live was strictly controlled and limited. There was no unemployment, and the penalties for any enterprise which evaded payments to the system were prohibitive (The State Bank was simply prohibited from paying wages until wage taxes had been paid). Transfers in cash and kind to the pensioners were strictly limited to the resources available. As a consequence, before 1989, Romania.s retirement system can be considered to have been consistently in excess. In the years which followed the overthrow of Nicolae Ceausescu, the public retirement system lost the constraints imposed by a command economy, and its implicit tensions became manifest. As the dispersion of wages increased under the pressure of even proto-market forces, disparities between benefits and contributions appeared, and the pressure for tax evasion grew. Tax discipline deteriorated. Furthermore, the new Government extended the pension system it had inherited, increasing the benefits and relaxing the qualifications, in response to political pressures. The result was that the system became fiscally imbalanced, and that, paradoxically, though privileges multiplied, actual average benefits declined. By 1997, the public pension system was in deficit, and the average real benefit had fallen to 45 % of its level in 1990. In 1998, Romania began an ambitious reform of its pension system, and proceed with a plan to introduce by stages a completely new three-pillar system. The form entailed a radical change of the public pension system (including the transition to a "point" system, unification of regimes, and increases in retirement ages), and a diversion of one third of the mandatory social security tax to a new private system of Universal Pension Funds. This paper presents and analyses the weight of the past. It describes the institutional weaknesses of the pre-reform system and analyses the demographic pressures threatening it. It concludes with a calculation of the implicit debt of the pre-reform system in 1997.Romania, pension systems

Hospital escapees highlight need for community mental health in Kenya

LSE’s LSE’s Victoria de Menil argues that hospitals are not a viable alternative for community mental health care in Kenya and other low and middle-income countries. argues that hospitals are not a viable alternative for community mental health care in Kenya and other low and middle-income countries

Reflections on the Great Recession of 2008-2009

As economists and policy makes ponder the lessons of the last two turbulent years, many troubling questions remain. What went wrong? Why did policy makers fail so abysmally to take preventative action? Why were economists so completely taken by surprise

Private Keep Out: A Case Study of Private Mental Healthcare in Kenya

As discussed in a recent LSE Africa seminar, LSE’s Victoria De Menil discusses the rise of private mental healthcare in Kenya. The LSE Africa seminar series takes place every Wednesday in term-time from 4 to 5.30pm in CLM1.02, Clement House, The Aldwych

A Model of Ukrainian Macroeconomic Indicators

In this paper we present the macroeconomic model elaborated by the Modeling Group of the International Center for Policy Studies. This paper includes the theoretical background as well as a detailed explanation of the two parts of the model: forecasting of nominal GDP and inflation and forecasting of consolidated budget revenue.Ukraine, macroeconomy

Have your say on the treatment gap in global mental health

An historic first took place in Portcullis House on 10 June. The UK All Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) on global health and mental health convened a joint hearing to discuss global mental health. The event, chaired by Lord Nigel Crisp together with James Morris MP, was the first of two oral evidence sessions to address the question of whether the UK government should be “doing more or doing differently” to address the treatment gap in global mental health. Three additional Parliamentarians, Meg Hillier MP, Vicount Eccles and Peter Bottomley MP, were also in attendance