{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.023215322112594312, 'fraction_numerical': 0.011607661056297156, 'mean_word_length': 5.006968641114983, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Population Aging, Intergenerational Transfers and the Macroeconomy. Edited by Robert Clark, Naohiro Ogawa and Andrew Mason. Edward Elgar, 2007, ISBN 978-1-84720-099-0, 320 pages

to examine possible routes by which the United States could reform its Social Security program. Moreover, woven into the fabric of the six chapters are arguments about the advantages and disadvantages of different kinds of reforms. I only wish this were more explicit. For example, it would be useful to pull together arguments for and against automatic mechanisms for insuring financial stability, using country specific cases to illustrate the points. The same applies to notional defined contribution pensions, individual accounts, and policies that increase the age of benefit eligibility. Although Penner’s preface, which is both interesting and thought provoking, does some of that, it could have gone further. The reader is left with the task of pulling together the related threads from the book’s similar conversations. While that may be a good exercise for the reader, it is likely that Penner could do it better given his knowledge and skills. Finally, there is meat here for a broader study of why some countries embrace public pension reform while others do not. I went into the book thinking that some countries – in particular parliamentary democracies – might be more foresighted and proactive than others. I came away surprised at the role of crises. Many countries that introduced innovative reforms were confronted with severe and immediate problems attributable to public pension solvency. Perhaps the early movers cannot be said to have been more rational ; perhaps instead, they were simply blessed with an earlier crisis.