Social Security Pension Reform in Europe

Social Security in the United States and in Europe is at a critical juncture. Through the essays assembled in Social Security Pension Reform in Europe, Martin Feldstein and Horst Siebert, along with a number of distinguished contributors, discuss the challenges facing Social Security reform in the aging societies of Europe. A remarkable range of European nations—Germany, France, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Hungary—have implemented or are about to implement mixed Social Security systems that combine a traditional defined benefit of the pay-as-you-go system with an individual retirement account defined contribution of a capital-funded system.

The essays here highlight the problems that the European pension reform process faces and how it differs from that of the United States. This timely volume will significantly enrich the debate on pension reform worldwide.

Martin Feldstein is the George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University and president and CEO of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is the author and editor of many books, including International Capital Flows and Privatizing Social Security, both published by the University of Chicago Press. Horst Siebert is president of the Kiel Institute of World Economics, professor of economics at the University of Kiel in Germany, and member of the German Council of Economic Advisers.