Assessing the World Bank Report Keeping the Promise

A new report of the World Bank released in 2004 evaluates the performance of structural pension reforms in several Latin American countries, ratifying some fundamental issues of the Bank's previous report of 1994 but contesting others, acknowledging serious problems and recommending new policies. In the light of available data from ten countries with structural reforms in the region, as well as the author's own research, this article discusses nine key elements of the new report: coverage, compliance, competition among administrators, managerial costs, capital accumulation, effects on capital and financial markets, fiscal costs, general and gender equity, and isolation from politics.