A review of international experience

Acknowledgments
T
his publication is the result of extensive collaboration of a diverse group of individu-
als and institutions. The project originates with an effort to develop new research and 
policy analysis focused on the challenge of closing the coverage gap, under the leadership 
of Robert Holzmann in his previous role as Director of Social Protection and Labor at 
the World Bank and Professor Noriyuki Takayama as Head of the Project on Intergenera-
tional Equity (PIE) of the Research Institute on Policies for Pension and Aging (RIPPA). 
This effort identified matching contributions as a promising method of extending pen-
sion coverage that was increasingly being used by developing countries, leading to a sub-
sequent conference focusing on the use of matching contributions held in June of 2011 at 
the World Bank. 
The conference and this resulting publication were organized and managed by 
Richard Hinz of the Social Protection Team of the World Bank’s Human Development 
Network (HDNSP), with financial support from the World Bank, PIE/RIPPA through 
a Grant-in-Aid for Specially Promoted Research from the Japan Society for the Promo-
tion of Science, and the Spanish Bank BBVA. The project would not have been pos-
sible without the support of HDNSP’s management team during this period, including 
Arup Banerji, Bassam Ramadan, and Anush Bezhanyan. David Tuesta, Eduardo Fuentes, 
Enrique Summers, Miguel Angel Caballero, and Patricio Urrutia from BBVA have been 
instrumental in supporting the effort.
The conference and publication involved contributions from many individuals. In 
addition to the authors of the chapters, these include participants at the conference who 
provided lively discussion and insights that focused and refined the issues and presenta-
tions. Especially valuable in this process have been Sylvester Schieber, Rafael Rofman, and 
Gonzalo Reyes, who provided peer review comments on the first draft of the publication. 
Barbara Karni provided invaluable work in editing the draft chapters, as did Nita Congress 
in the final copyediting, layout, and design of the book. The timely advice and support 
of Paola Scalabrin of the World Bank has been essential in completing the publication 
process. As always, none of this would have been possible without the tireless efforts of the 
administrative support staff at the World Bank in managing all of the logistics for the con-
ference and publication, notably Amira Nikolas, Francine Pagsibigan, Merced Doroteo, 
and Sandra Friedman. 

xv
Contributors
NEVIN ADAMS is Director of Education and External Relations at the nonparti-
san Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), and Co-Director of EBRI’s Cen-
ter for Research on Retirement Income. Prior to joining EBRI in November 2011, 
he was Global Editor-in-Chief of PLANSPONSOR magazine and its web counterpart 
PLANSPONSOR.com. He is a veteran of the retirement sector, having served in a series 
of senior management positions in both the defined benefit and defined contribution plan 
fields at Wachovia Bank and Northern Trust Corporation. He holds B.S. and J.D. degrees 
from DePaul University in Chicago.
PAULA BENAVIDES is Head of the Research and Actuarial Studies Department of the 
Budget Office within Chile’s Ministry of Finance. Previously, she served as an Economist 
within the Budget Office’s Department of Research, and researched the structural balance 
of the public sector. In 2006, she was appointed to lead a team providing technical sup-
port for the preparation of the law creating Chile’s new pension system reform. She holds 
a master’s degree in economics and a commercial engineering degree from the Catholic 
University of Chile.
AXEL BÖRSCHSUPAN is Director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and 
Social Policy in Munich, leading the Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA). 
Previously, he was a Professor of macroeconomics and economic policy at the Univer-
sity of Mannheim, and an Assistant Professor of public policy at Harvard University. He 
is a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the Berlin-
Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau 
of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is member of the Council of 
Advisors to the German Economics Ministry and has co-chaired the German Pension 
Reform Commission. He has a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology. 
LUIS CARRANZA is Head of the Economics Department at the Universidad San Mar-
tín. Previously, he served as Minister of Finance of the government of Peru. He has also 
served as Peru’s Deputy Minister of Finance and as a Board Member of the Central Bank 
of Peru, and as Chief Economist for Latin America and Emerging Markets in BBVA, 
among other positions. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota.
JIE CHENG is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Population and Labor Econom-
ics, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. His research interests include social security, 

xvi 
CONTRIBUTORS
migration and rural development, poverty alleviation, and income distribution. He 
received his Ph.D. in agricultural economics from the China Agriculture University in 
2009.
MICHELA COPPOLA is Head of the Macroeconomic Implications of an Aging Society 
Research Unit at the Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA). Her research 
focuses on the analysis of the effects of population aging and pension reforms on sav-
ing behavior and on asset choices. She has been with the center since 2007, when it was 
known as the Mannheim Research Institute. She has degrees in economics from the Uni-
versity of Rome Tor Vergata and the Munich Graduate School of Economics at the Lud-
wig Maximilian Universität. 
ANTOINE DELARUE is an Actuary and Economist, Founder and Managing Direc-
tor of the consulting firm SERVAC, which specializes in pension scheme design and 
social transfer engineering. In France, his audits of compulsory pension schemes often 
led to significant reforms or mergers, linked with the development of new analytical 
concepts and tools to monitor these. Since 1996, he has developed overseas activities 
on social insurance issues in numerous developing countries in Eastern Europe, Central 
Asia, Africa, and Central America.  He currently focuses on designing and implement-
ing schemes that extend social coverage. He previously served in the French planning 
authority, then in the social security administration at a senior governmental level. He 
graduated from the École Polytechnique in Paris and holds a Ph.D. in applied economics 
from Stanford University.
MARK C. DORFMAN is a Senior Economist with the Pensions Team in the Social 
Protection Department of the World Bank where he works on pensions, social security, 
and contractual savings reform. He has prepared multiple reports on the Chinese pension 
system, beginning in 1999 when he worked in the World Bank’s East Asia and Pacific 
Region. During his 24 years with the Bank, he has worked on different areas of pension 
and financial market reform in Latin America and the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, 
and East Asia and the Pacific. He holds an MBA in finance from the Wharton School.
RICHARD HINZ is a Pension Policy Adviser for the Social Protection Team of the 
Human Development Network at the World Bank. Since he joined the Bank in 2003, 
his work has been focused on the reform of social security systems and the development, 
regulation, and supervision of funded pension arrangements—subjects on which he has 
authored and edited a number of articles and publications. Prior to this, he was the Direc-
tor of the Office of Policy and Research at what is now the Employee Benefits Secu-
rity Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor, where he managed the economic 
research and legislative analysis for the agency responsible for regulation and supervision 
of employer-sponsored pension and health insurance programs in the United States.
ROBERT HOLZMANN holds the chair of Old Age Financial Protection at the Uni-
versity of Malaya (Malaysia) and is a Research Fellow of the Institute for the Study of 
Labor (IZA) in Bonn and of the CESifo Group Munich. He also serves as a Consultant 

CONTRIBUTORS 
xvii
on financial literacy and education, pensions, labor market, and migration issues. From 
1997 to 2011, he held various positions at the World Bank, including Director for Social 
Protection and Labor. Before joining the Bank, he was a Professor in Germany and Aus-
tria, and a Senior Economist at the International Monetary Fund and the Organisation 
for Economic Co-operation and Development. He has published 33 books and over 150 
articles on social, fiscal, and financial policy issues.
BRIGITTE C. MADRIAN is the Aetna Professor of Public Policy and Corporate Man-
agement at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Research Associate and Co-Director of 
the Household Finance working group at the National Bureau of Economic Research. 
Her research focuses on household saving and investment behavior and has twice been 
awarded the TIAA-CREF Paul A. Samuelson Award for Scholarly Research on Lifelong 
Financial Security. She received her Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology. 
ÁNGEL MELGUIZO is a Lead Specialist in pensions in the Labor Markets and Social 
Security Unit at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Before joining the IDB, 
he worked as an Economist at the Americas Desk of the Organisation for Economic Co-
operation and Development’s Development Center, contributing to its regional flagship 
publication Latin American Economic Outlook. Previously, he was a Senior Adviser at the 
Economic Bureau of the Spanish Prime Minister, and a principal economist at the BBVA 
Financial Group, specializing in research on pension reform in Latin America, fiscal pol-
icy, and long-term economic growth. His research interests include Latin America, devel-
opment, fiscal policy, social security, and pensions. He holds a Ph.D. in public economics 
and a B.A. in economics from Complutense University of Madrid.
HYUNGPYO MOON is a senior research fellow of the Korea Development Institute 
(KDI). He joined the KDI in 1989 and served as Director of the department of fiscal 
policy and social development, and as Managing Director of the Economic Information 
and Education Center of the KDI. He is also a former Visiting Scholar of the University 
of California at Berkeley and Assistant Secretary of the Health and Welfare Division in 
the Office of the President of the Republic of Korea. He has written on numerous socio-
economic issues, including tax and fiscal policy, social welfare policy, population aging, 
and pension systems in Korea. His recent publications include A Comprehensive Study on 
Constructing an Old-Age Income Security System in Korea (2007–2008) and Socio-Economic 
Impacts of Population Ageing and Policy Issues (2004–2006). He earned a Ph.D. in econom-
ics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1989. 
PHILIP O’KEEFE is Lead Economist and Human Development Sector Coordinator 
for China and Mongolia in the East Asia and Pacific Region of the World Bank. He 
has worked on social protection, labor market, and social services in Eastern Europe and 
Central Asia, India and Nepal, and the Pacific Islands. Prior to joining the World Bank 
in 1993, he was University Lecturer in international economic law at the University of 
Warwick, U.K.

xviii 
CONTRIBUTORS
MIKE ORSZAG is Head of Research for Towers Watson, the actuarial and human 
resources consulting firm. He is also a founding editor of the Journal of Pension Econom-
ics and Finance (Cambridge University Press) and a co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of 
Pensions and Retirement Income.  He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of 
Michigan and an A.B. from Princeton University. He is a member of a number of scien-
tific advisory boards including the Boston College Center for Retirement Research and 
the Kiel Institute of the World Economy.
ROBERT PALACIOS is Pension Team Leader in the Social Protection Unit of the World 
Bank. Between 1992 and 1994, he was a member of the team that produced the Bank’s 
influential volume on international pension systems, Averting the Old Age Crisis: Policies to 
Protect the Old and Promote Growth. Since 1995, he has divided his time between opera-
tional work and research in more than two dozen countries, most recently focusing on 
South Asia. His publications include articles and books on old-age poverty, health insur-
ance, and a wide range of pension policy issues.
WILL PRICE is a World Bank Senior Financial Sector Specialist. He focuses on improv-
ing pension system design, regulation, supervision, and outcomes, working with client 
countries and on regional and global issues. He was Head of Policy at the U.K. Pensions 
Regulator and Vice-Chair of the International Organisation of Pension Supervisors Tech-
nical Committee. At the U.K. Finance Ministry, he was Private Secretary to the Chancel-
lor, Head of Assets, Savings and Wealth and worked on development there and at the 
Department for International Development (DFID). He has degrees in economics from 
Oxford University and University College London and is a member of the Royal Eco-
nomic Society and Chartered Institute of Insurance.
GEOFF RASHBROOKE is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries. His work experience 
includes five years as New Zealand Government Actuary and five years as a Principal 
Policy Analyst with the New Zealand Department of Social Development. He is currently 
an honorary Research Associate with the Institute of Governance and Policy Studies of 
Victoria University of Wellington, and a committee member of the Pensions, Benefits 
and Social Security section of the International Association of Actuaries. He also provides 
actuarial services to assist ongoing reform of the Fiji National Provident Fund.
ANETTE REILHELD studied economics at the Universität Mannheim. As part of 
an interdisciplinary research network, the Sonderforschungsbereich 504, she undertook 
research into the relationship between private transfers, saving behavior, and the public 
pension system. In 2002 she earned her Ph.D. at Universität Mannheim. She managed 
what is now the Munich Center for the Economics of Aging’s (MEA’s) research unit on 
Old-Age Provision and Social Policy between 2002 and 2008 and was Chief Operating 
Officer until 2008. Her main research interests are saving behavior and social policy.
DALLAS SALISBURY is president and CEO of the Employee Benefit Research Insti-
tute (EBRI). He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources. He currently 
serves as an appointee of President Obama on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation 

CONTRIBUTORS 
xix
(PBGC) Advisory Committee (having served in the late 1980s as an appointee of Presi-
dent George H. W. Bush) and an appointee of the Comptroller General of the United 
States to his Board of Advisors. Mr. Salisbury has written and lectured extensively on eco-
nomic security topics. He holds a B.A. from the University of Washington and an M.P.A. 
from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.
RENUKA SANE is a Research Economist with the Finance Research Group at the Indira 
Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai. Her research interests include pen-
sion economics, household finance, financial intermediation, and public policy. She has a 
Ph.D. in economics from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
NORIYUKI TAKAYAMA is Distinguished Scholar at the Research Institute for Policies 
on Pension and Aging (RIPPA) and JRI Pension Research Chair Professor at Hitotsub-
ashi University. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo. He is Director General 
and Chief Executive Officer of a Research Project on Intergenerational Equity (PIE). His 
articles have been published in Econometrica and American Economic Review. His publica-
tions include Taste of Pie: Searching for Better Pension Provisions in Developed Countries, 
Closing the Coverage Gap: Role of Social Pensions and Other Retirement Income Transfers, and 
Priority Challenges in Pension Administration. He is the author of a Japanese book, Saving 
and Wealth Formation, which was awarded the 1996 Nikkei Prize for the best book on 
economic issues.
DAVID TUESTA is Chief Economist of the Pension Unit of BBVA Research. He pre-
viously held the position of Global Trends Chief Economist and Chief Economist of 
Peru with BBVA Research. He has also worked for the Ministry of Finance of Peru as 
Chief Economist at the National Tax Authority, and was a Board Member of the Peru-
vian National Energy Regulatory Authority and an Economist for Apoyo Consulting. 
His research is mainly focused on public finance, fiscal decentralization, pensions, and 
banking.
JACK VANDERHEI is the Research Director of the Employee Benefit Research Institute 
(EBRI). He is also the Director of both the EBRI Defined Contribution and Participant 
Behavior Research Program and the EBRI Retirement Security Research Program and 
the Co-Director of the EBRI Center for Research on Retirement Income. He has worked 
on more than 150 research publications devoted to employee benefits and insurance. 
His major areas of research focus on the financial aspects of private retirement plans. He 
received his B.B.A. and M.B.A. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and his M.A. 
and Ph.D. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
HERMANN VON GERSDORFF is Vice Chair of the Budget Office within Chile’s 
Ministry of Finance. He previously worked for the World Bank in Washington, D.C., 
Zagreb, and Buenos Aires as Manager and Economist for Social Protection, Finance and 
Private Sector Development for Europe and Central Asia and Latin America. With the 
United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, he served 
in Mexico as an Economist in the Industrial Department. He was a Professor of project 

xx 
CONTRIBUTORS
evaluation at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, and a Professor in price 
theory at both the Universidad de Chile and the Universidad del Norte, Chile. He was a 
Program Officer with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization in Ven-
ezuela. He holds degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of Cologne.
DEWEN WANG is a Social Protection Economist for China and Mongolia in the East 
Asia and Pacific Region of the World Bank in Beijing. His work focuses on China’s social 
insurance and social assistance programs, labor market dynamics, demographic transition, 
and population aging. He was a Professor and Division Chief of the Institute of Popula-
tion and Labor Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, before he joined the 
World Bank Social Protection team.
EDWARD WHITEHOUSE is Head of Pension Policy Analysis in the Social Policy Divi-
sion of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). He 
is lead author of the OECD flagship report on retirement income systems, Pensions at a 
Glance, whose fourth edition was published in March 2011, and a range of publications 
including the first three chapters of OECD Pensions Outlook 2012 and the joint World 
Bank–OECD report Pensions Panorama: Retirement-Income Systems in 53 Countries, pub-
lished in November 2006. He has worked on pension reform in a number of countries 
with the World Bank and the OECD. Previously, he was a lead writer and social affairs 
correspondent for the Financial Times and worked at the Institute for Fiscal Studies in 
London.
MITCHELL WIENER is a Pension Actuary with more than 35 years of domestic and 
international experience. He is currently the World Bank’s Social Protection leader in the 
Indonesia country office and one of the Bank’s pension leaders in the East Asia and Pacific 
region. He has extensive international experience, primarily in Southeast Asia and Eastern 
Europe. His focus has been on the reform of national social security systems, introduc-
tion of mandatory and voluntary private pension systems, improvement of pension and 
insurance regulation, and development of the local actuarial profession. He has worked on 
pension issues in Thailand in various capacities for the past 10 years.

xxi
Abbreviations
BEP 
Beneficios Económicos Periódicos (Periodic Economic Benefits) 
(Colombia)
CODA 
cash or deferred arrangement
EBRI 
Employment Benefit Research Institute
EGTRRA 
Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act (United States)
EPF 
Employee Pension Fund (Japan)
EPFO 
Employee Provident Fund Organization (India)
ERISA 
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (United States)
FGPM 
Fondo de Garantía de Pensión Mínima (Minimum Pension Guaran-
tee Fund) (Colombia)
FPS 
Ficha de Protección Social (Social Protection Index) (Chile)
FSP 
Fondo de Solidaridad Pensional (Pension Solidarity Fund) (Colombia)
GDP 
gross domestic product
ICI 
Investment Company Institute
IDA 
individual development account
IMSS 
Instituto Mexicano de Seguridad Social (Mexican Social Security 
Institute)
INPS 
Instituto Nacional de Previdência Social (National Institute of Social 
Protection) (Cape Verde)
IRA 
individual retirement account
IRS 
Internal Revenue Service (United States)
ISSSTE 
Instituto de Seguridad Social y Servicios Sociales de los Trabajadores 
del Estado (Institute for Civil Servant Social Insurance and Services) 
(Mexico)
KGFS 
Kshetriya Grameen Financial Services
KNH 
Kosei Nenkin Hoken (Japan)
MAROP 
Mecanismo de Ahorro para el Retiro Oportunidades (Mechanism 
for Saving for Retirement Opportunities) (Mexico)
MDC 
matching defined contribution
MHRSS 
Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (China)
MOCA 
Ministry of Civil Affairs (China)
MYPES 
micro- and small enterprises (micro y pequeñas empresas)
NHCE 
non–highly compensated employee
NPS 
New Pension Scheme (India)
NRPS 
National Rural Pension Scheme (China)

xxii 
ABBREVIATIONS
NSF 
National Savings Fund (Thailand)
OECD 
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
PAYE 
pay as you earn (New Zealand)
PENSIONISSTE  National Pension Fund for Civil Servants (Mexico)
RAIS 
Individual Savings System with Solidarity (Régimen de Ahorro Indi-
vidual con Solidaridad) (Colombia)
RAP 
retirement allowance plan (Japan)
RPM 
Régimen de Prima Media (Average Premium System) (Colombia)
RPPS 
Rural Pension Pilot Scheme (China)
SEJ 
Subsidio al Empleo Joven (Youth Employment Subsidy) (Chile)
SPTJ 
Subsidio Previsional a los Trabajadores Jóvenes (Social Security Sub-
sidy for Young Workers) (Chile)
TQPP 
Tax-Qualified Pension Plan (Japan)
URPS 
Urban Resident Pension Scheme (China)
UTAP 
Union Tunisienne de l’Agriculture et de la Pêche (Tunisian Union of 
Agriculture and Fishing) (Tunisia)
All dollar amounts are U.S. dollars unless otherwise indicated.

PART I