Alejandra Cox Edwards

As populations age and revenues diminish, government and private pension funds around the world are facing insolvency. The looming social security crisis is especially dire for women, who generally live longer than men but have worked less in the formal labor force. This groundbreaking study examines alterantive social security systems and their disparate impacts on men and women. Emphasis is placed on the new multi-pillar systems that combine a publicly managed benefit and a mandatory private retirement saving plan." The Gender Impact of Social Security Reform" compares the gendered outcomes of social security systems in Chile, Argentina, and Mexico, and presents empirical findings from Eastern and Central European transition economies as well as several OECD countries. Women's positions have improved relative to men in countries where joint pensions have been required, widows who have worked can keep the joint pension in addition to their own benefit, the public benefit has been targeted toward low earners, and women now retire at the same age as men. "The Gender Impact of Social Security Reform" will force economists and policy makers to reexamine the design features that enable social security systems to achieve desirable gender outcomes.

The successes and failures of free market policy in Chile, implemented in 1973 under the guidance of economists trained at the University of Chicago, are clearly explained in this well-written study. The authors argue that it was a combination of misjudgments, including important policy errors, that led to the collapse of the Chilean economy. "The Edwards's book is an indispensable guide to the policy reforms and mistakes that have taken the [Chilean] economy to its present state."—Philip L. Brock, Money, Credit, and Banking "This book is a 'must' for anybody interested in development economies and the problems of liberalization."—Hansjorg Blochliger, Journal of International Economics