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This paper provides a conceptual overview of economists' attempts to learn about the effects of taxes on extractive resources. The emphasis is on research methods and techniques, with no attempt to provide a comprehensive tabulation of previous empirical results or policy conclusions regarding preferred tax instruments or systems. We argue, in fact, that the nature of such conclusions largely depends on the researcher's choice of modeling framework. Many alternative frameworks and approaches have been developed in the literature. Our goal is to describe the differences among them and to note their strengths and limitations.

This paper provides an assessment of the Polish funded pension system and the quality of the regulatory framework for the accumulation phase. There are two elements that distinguish the Polish pension fund portfolios from other reforming countries: the relatively high component of domestic equity, and the negligible component on international securities. Although this asset allocation has provided relatively high real rates of return in the past, it may not be the case in the future, as further portfolio diversification to other instruments will become necessary to ensure sustainable rates of return. The paper provides a number of recommendations to expand the opportunities of investments to pension funds. Pension fund management companies have been able to exploit scale economies in certain areas of the business, such as collection of revenues. This study proposes mechanisms to enhance them even more by centralizing also the account management system, which may also help to increase portfolio efficiency and competition. With the payout phase starting in 2009, broad definitions in areas such as the role of the public and private sector need to be established. The paper examines products and options that authorities may consider for the design of the payout phase.

Bond laddering is a popular fixed-income investment strategy. The main purpose of this paper is to develop a methodology for determining private investors’ most interest rate risk (IRR)-return-efficient investment horizon for bond ladders (BLs), which are virtually free of credit risk. Two IRR measures of a continuously rolling and homogenous BL (CRHBL) are analytically derived under the assumption that interest rates are martingales. The first measure is the modified duration, which assumes a flat term structure of interest rates. However, this assumption is not fully supported by the empirical data and, thus, an additional IRR measure is proposed. Under each of these two measures, the ratios between the annual return in excess of the demand deposit rate and IRR of CRHBLs with different investment horizons are calculated. As expected, CRHBLs with rather low IRR are most risk-return-efficient. The results for the theoretical CRHBLs also apply to “real-world” discrete BLs. Thus, the proposed methodology can help private investors construct IRR-return-efficient discrete BLs.

'Risk-Based Supervision of Pension Funds' provides a review of the design and experience of risk-based pension fund supervision in countries that have been leaders in the development of these methods. The utilization of risk-based methods originates primarily in the supervision of banks. In recent years it has increasingly been extended to other types of financial intermediaries, including pension funds and insurers. The trend toward risk-based supervision of pensions reflects an increasing focus on risk management in both banking and insurance based on three key elements: capital requirements, supervisory review, and market discipline. Although similar in concept to the techniques developed in banking, its application to pension funds has required modifications, particularly for defined contribution funds that transfer investment risk to fund members. The countries examined–Australia, Denmark, Mexico, and the Netherlands–provide a range of experience that illustrates both the diversity of pension systems and the approaches to risk-based supervision, and also presents a commonality of focus on sound risk management and effective supervisory outcomes.

Population aging is placing enormous pressures on the pension benefits governments are able to provide. The former transition economies of the countries of Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe (CESE) face unique challenges. The growth of their aging populations outpaces other European countries, while the growth of their financial markets (essential to fund pension provisions) lags behind. With support and direction from the ERSTE Foundation, an Austrian group focused on Central European policy issues, a World Bank team investigated the challenges faced by these countries against the background of international experience from the OECD countries and Latin America. 'Aging Population, Pension Funds, and Financial Markets: Regional Perspectives and Global Challenges for Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe' examines how well the financial systems in the CESE economies were prepared for the challenges of multipillar pension reform, how ready they are for the approaching payout of benefits to the first participants, whether returns from pension funds can be sustained in an aging population, and how determined policy actions might be implemented to complete financial market development.

This paper provides an assessment of the funded pension system and the quality of the regulatory framework for both accumulation and payout phase. It suggests that the lack of portfolio diversification may contribute in the future to low returns and poor pensions and provides a number of recommendations to expand the opportunities of investments to pension funds. The paper also finds that pension fund administrators are not exploiting the scale economies in certain areas of the business such as collection of revenues and account management, and proposes mechanisms to reduce costs and increase efficiency through greater competition. The paper examines the products and options offered at retirement age and finds a bias toward the payment of pensions in the form of lump sums and suggests alternatives for improving the availability of other instruments. Enhancements to the regulatory framework of insurance companies are also proposed.

The basic assets which are traded in financial markets include stocks and bonds. Statistical analysis of stock markets is done from time series of returns. This chapter discusses different types of fixed income instruments, such as zero‐coupon bonds, coupon paying bonds, callable bonds, and floating rate bonds. A zero‐coupon bond, or a pure discount bond, is a certificate which gives the owner a nominal amount principal at the future maturity time. Coupon bearing bonds make regular payments before the final payment at the maturity. Callable bonds allow the bond issuer to purchase the bond back from the bondholders. The callable bonds help the issuer to retire old high‐rate bonds and issue new low‐rate bonds. Floating rate bonds (floaters) are such bonds whose rates are adjusted periodically to match inflation rates. This chapter then discusses the data sets which are used to illustrate the methods of sampling of prices.

Developing countries need additional, cross-border capital channeled into their private sectors to generate employment and growth, reduce poverty, and meet the other Millennium Development Goals. Innovative financing mechanisms are necessary to make this happen. 'Innovative Financing for Development' is the first book on this subject that uses a market-based approach. It compiles pioneering methods of raising development finance including securitization of future flow receivables, diaspora bonds, and GDP-indexed bonds. It also highlights the role of shadow sovereign ratings in facilitating access to international capital markets. It argues that poor countries, especially those in Sub-Saharan Africa, can potentially raise tens of billions of dollars annually through these instruments. The chapters in the book focus on the structures of the various innovative financing mechanisms, their track records and potential for tapping international capital markets, the constraints limiting their use, and policy measures that governments and international institutions can implement to alleviate these constraints.

This chapter discusses the basic concepts of fixed income markets as interest rates, zero‐coupon bonds, and coupon‐bearing bonds. It presents several contexts where interest rates appear. The chapter studies interest rate forwards whose underlyings are fixed income instruments. These include forward zero‐coupon bonds, forward rate agreements, and swaps. The chapter also discusses interest rate options whose underlyings are fixed income instruments. These include caps, floors, and swaptions. Black‐Scholes model has been standard for pricing European derivatives but no such widely applicable model for interest rate derivatives has been found. The pricing and hedging of interest rate derivatives depends on the whole yield curve, and not on any single interest rate, which complicates the pricing and hedging. The yields are a more convenient way to quote the prices than the dollar value, because one can compare different kinds of bonds with their yields.

The differential equation itself is not sufficient to valuate a financial instrument; in order to do so, we additionally need final conditions, boundary conditions and sometimes also interface conditions. This chapter deals with the formulation of such conditions for specific examples. There are quite a few financial instruments with more or less heavily path‐dependent payoffs available, and this path‐dependence may be arbitrarily complicated. Therefore, the chapter concentrates on specific aspects that are fundamental from the authors point of view. It focuses on the terminal conditions for equity options, and examines the terminal conditions for fixed income instruments. The chapter briefly talks about the callability and Bermudan options. It also deals with snowballs and tarns. The chapter concludes with a discussion on boundary conditions, and deals with the interface conditions of two groups of exotic instruments with a strong path dependence.