An appraisal of a quarter-century of structural pension reforms in Latin America

This article gives a comparative description of three different general structural pension reform models applied in 12 Latin American countries, analysing their key concepts. In its main part, it analyses and suggests policies to deal with the 11 challenges that must be faced in such reforms: the decline in labour force coverage; the growing failure to pay contributions; the faults due to imperfect competition among pension fund management companies; the continuing high level of administrative costs; the accumulation of capital, yet without solid evidence that this has had a positive impact on national saving; the high and prolonged fiscal cost of the transition; the potential development of the capital market but a lack of diversification in the investment portfolio; the variable real returns on investment; the lack of evidence that pensions are higher under the private than under the public system; the accentuation of gender-based inequities, and the erosion of solidarity. /