What Lessons Have Been Learnt from the Pension System in Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Peru?

Abstract

(Available only in Spanish) This work attempts to extract lessons from the experience of the pension system reforms carried out in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru. These reforms have introduced pensions based on individual funding, with private management under mandate, state regulation and guarantees, inspired by the Chilean reform. Given the excellent international availability of studies of the Chilean experience, this work concentrates on questions related to the design and implementation of new reforms. A word of caution is needed about the difficulties and limitations of comparing real well-established developments with incipient schemes, most of them barely expressed in regulations: legislation is frequently passed which is not followed through; and regulations sometimes represent ambiguous commitments not interpreted until later, and generate incentives that have met with diverse and variable responses over time.