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Article: Pension funds.(deregulation of European pension-fund rules)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- October 14, 2000
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Old hopes stirring
GIVEN that they all agree that a demographic "pension time-bomb" is ticking, Europe's policymakers have done remarkably little to defuse it. In most continental European countries, the pay-as-you-go arrangements, whereby current workers pay the pensions of retirees, still rule. Governments have discouraged their citizens from investment in private pensions by imposing rules that lower the returns earned by pension funds, such as limits on how much money they may put into equities, or into foreign securities of any sort. As a result, European pension-fund investors have largely missed out on the bull market in shares over the past two decades.
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