Vacillations around a Pension Reform Trajectory: time for a change?

Platon Tinios

GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe from Hellenic Observatory, LSE

Abstract: Discussion of pensions in Greece displays a paradox: reform is universally acknowledged to be important, urgent and mature, yet the political class avoid and postpone all discussion. This results in a syncopated reform path. A historical overview indicates that reforms are best understood as interrupted and unsuccessful attempts to complete the original blueprint for the pension system which was formulated in the 1930s. These define a reform trajectory around which there exist centrifugal forces pulling away (cross-subsidies), and homeostatic mechanisms bringing back on track (public finance). Thus, the original 1930s design is implicitly accepted as a maximal aim of reform, while the question of its appropriateness is never raised. This analysis explains reform failures by problems in the content and preparation of reforms, rather than on the strength of opposition (which, in any case, was highly predictable). A fresh start, provided there is adequate preparation, is a possible way out of the impasse.

Keywords: Greece; History of the welfare state; Social Security; Pension reforms. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age and nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (41)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.lse.ac.uk/Hellenic-Observatory/Assets/ ... E-No34.pdfcolleagues (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found

Related works:
Working Paper: Vacillations around a pension reform trajectory: time for a change? (2010)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hel:greese:34

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe from Hellenic Observatory, LSE Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Vassilis Monastiriotis ().