ABSTRACT
The positive potential for creating developmental synergies between national pension systems and national economies is increasingly appreciated. This chapter deals with both issues but is primarily concerned with the second. It examines current systemic pension reform agendas with a critical eye and with the aim of reconceptualising the problem of pension reform as a public-private partnership issue with a long pedigree rather than as a new problematic stemming from existing or anticipated state failures. The chapter suggests that the novelty, and contentiousness, of current pension reform proposals does not derive from the fact that such reform models advocate a rebalancing of public-private roles in the provision of national pensions. The long historical tradition of, in contemporary terminology, public-private partnerships in national pension provision has produced a very rich mixture of the public and the private in pension’s management and delivery with significant variations in approach both over time and between countries.
