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Indexes of implicit liabilities for pension systems : what do they measure? The notion of implicit liabilities for pension systems can be interpreted in several ways. Two approaches are centered on benefits due to current pensioners or to be paid to current contributors : these two approaches are the method of accrued-to-date liabilities and the closed-group method. A third approach also includes prospective benefits and contributions for future cohorts of contributors : this approach is generally referred to as the method of open-system liabilities. This paper presents some indicative quantifications of these three approaches for French pensions. It also gives some analytical results concerning the steady state level of liabilities computed according to the first two approaches. We finally compare the behaviour of these three approaches under situations of stylized demographic change, i.e. a baby-boom and/or a continuous increase in life expectancy. These simulations confirm that the open system approach is more informative and more convenient when the question we are interested in is the question of long run sustainabi- lity, and not the question of prefunding of current entitlements.

Domestic Borrowing : an Option for Financing Public Expenditures whose Time has Come in Africa ? TheCaseofWAEMU Following a series of debt cancellations, the public debt of many developing countries has reached low levels. These countries are being urged to extent public spending to reach The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but can not exclusively rely on external financing. Consequently, is an increase in the domestic debt possible and desirable ? This paper investigates this issue in the case of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), of which several countries have benefited from important debt cancellations. We show that an increase in the domestic debt is not only possible, since there exists excess bank liquidity and that institutional constraints may be overcome, but also desirable since the main risks linked to the rise of public debt (debt distress, crowding out of private investment and real exchange rate appreciation) seem weak at the moment.

The Index of Economie Vféll-Being: an Application to the Case of France Among the various initiatives that attempt to refine the measures of "well being" from a standpoint of economic development as being based on multiple criteria, Lars Osberg and Andrew Sharpe are part of a group of authors that propose a rigorous and inspiring framework. Unfortunately, their works have not until now been carefully applied to the case of France. The article aims to overcome this particular empirical gap by proposing an estimation of economic well being and its evolution over more than two decades (1980-2003), deduced from a novel database.

Has the Differential in Standards of Living Grown Between the United States and France? Whereas ordinary consumption statistics suggest that France has lost ground against its economic partners — and, in particular, against the U.S. — during the last three decades, this paper aims at re-examining the French décrochage thesis in the light of extended measures of consumption incorporating, under the form of monetary imputations, other aspects of standards of living, such as longevity, leisure time and economic insecurity. The comparison of those measures over the period 1970-2003 reveals that the existence and the size of a French décrochage depend on the preferences used as a reference, on the adherence to an absolute or relative measure of the gap between the two countries, on the treatment of public consumption expenditures, and on the estimation of the value of a statistical life used for the calibration of preferences parameters.

Prospective Developments in the Annuity Market: What Can we Expect? According to the annuity demand theory, a rational consumer without bequest motives should invest a significant part of his capital in annuities. Empirical analyses do not bring any confirmation: the market is very small. The increasing amount of defined contribution retirement plans, implying the availability of a capital when workers retire, should be correlated with the development of the annuity market. However, this is not the case. Traditional explanations are adverse selection, bequest motives, competition coming from high return assets, family insurance and precautionary savings. Irrationality in choices is an interesting but still hardly explored hypothesis. If the cause was to be found in the structure of the annuity market and not in alternative optimal choices, a deficit in longevity insurance would appear and a potential compulsory annuitization should be taken into consideration.