Serdar Gamber

Reforming Social Security Systems Through Privatization: Lessons from International Experience Serdar Gamber

Today, many economists guess that the global trend of privatizing social security is not a short-term phenomenon and its influence will increase further in the future. In fact, the privatization wave is so strong, that it leads to discussions in almost every part of the world and not only in the countries implementing these reforms. Almost whole world is watching these developments and carefully analyzing the outcomes of these reforms. But why does the situation look like this and why are so many countries willing to change their old social security systems, which have provided retirement income to the elderly for so many years? There must be some common dissatisfaction with the existing public systems which became apparent in recent years. Without doubt, the readers of World Bank?s ?Averting the Old Age Crisis? know these problems quite good. However, why are all hopes tied to such a radical change like privatization on the pursuit for the ?ideal? pension system? What kind of a cure is privatization expected to bring to retirement income systems? This study aims to answer these questions by presenting experiences from all all around the globe.