Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
992542 World Development 2007 28 Pages PDF
Abstract

SummaryThe governments of New Zealand, Mauritius, Namibia, Botswana, Bolivia, Nepal, Samoa, Brunei, Kosovo, and Mexico City provide a basic pension to the elderly with no test other than citizenship, residence, and age. These universal non-means-tested pensions automatically protect an entire population, in a way that contributory, earnings-related pensions never can. The author examines the value of this scheme for low-income countries and argues that an income test, if desired, is best done ex post through the tax system rather than ex ante, even though there are few examples of ex post recovery systems operating in the world today.

Related Topics
Social Sciences and Humanities Economics, Econometrics and Finance Economics and Econometrics
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