Public Pension Programs in Southeast Asia: An Assessment

This paper assesses public pension programs in select Southeast Asian economies (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam – henceforth referred to as the SEA6) and the key issues facing them. The criteria used in assessing pension systems are the philosophy of pension design, the extent of coverage, investment policies and performance, and administrative and compliance costs. The paper argues that three broad reform directions to strengthen public pensions merit consideration. The first direction is to enhance the professionalism of the existing provident and pension fund organizations, including their governance practices. The second direction is to strengthen the role of noncontributory budget‐financed pensions (e.g. social pensions). The third is to adopt a systemic perspective to pension reform that includes reforms in complementary areas (labor markets, public financial management practices, and the civil service); developing a financing‐mix of pensions; and lastly, improving effective coverage by exploring complementarities between health care and pension programs.     

Information transmission when the sender''s preferences are uncertain

In deciding on the magnitude of a certain action (say, investment), a decision maker relies on the report of an informed and interested expert who can suppress favorable information. The main departure from the related literature is that the decision maker is uncertain as to whether the expert is of a type that wants to minimize the magnitude of the action or to maximize it. The unique equilibrium outcome is fully characterized by a threshold level of favorable information. If the information is more favorable than that threshold level and if the expert is of the type that wants to maximize the magnitude of the action, the information is fully revealed. In all other cases, the expert report less favorable information and the equilibrium inference is that, in expectation, the actual information is just as favorable as the threshold level.     

Train access and financial performance of local authorities: greater Tel Aviv as a case study

In this paper, we examine the assumption that as a municipality obtains train access, its financial performance improves. Using the case study of the Greater Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area (GTAMA) we conclude that this link is neither obvious nor uniform. The main outcome of the study is that, upon gaining train access, centrally-located municipalities, such as Tel Aviv, significantly increase their revenue base. Concurrently, municipalities located in the peripheral areas of the metropolis improve their performance only marginally and even decline in their attractiveness to migrants, as a result of train access. As suggested, this difference may be explained by the socio-economic structure of each municipality group, which affects their ability to take advantage of the rail. These findings send a message to planners and decision-makers that establishment of train access does not necessarily improve the financial performance of local authorities, and can even limit their demographic growth. Other factors, such as urban functionality and location, should thus be taken into account in assessing the potential benefits and drawbacks associated with rail expansion.     

Future skills and current realities: How the psychological (Jungian) type of European business leaders relates to the needs of the future

How ready for the future are our business leaders? This paper addresses this question by drawing on two pieces of research. An international skills audit was carried out to ascertain if the skills needed by future business leaders would be different from the skills needed today; the results from 340 respondents are presented. These are compared with data on the Jungian type of over 8000 senior managers and executives taken from nine different European countries. Type was measured by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator^® (MBTI^®) instrument. The findings are used to identify challenges for the future. For example, although the audit suggested that skills such as the ability to empower others are likely to become increasingly important, people with the most common type preference amongst European senior managers (ESTJ) may, especially when under stress, have a particular tendency to want to make all the decisions themselves, without any input from others. The ways in which organisational psychologists and HR practitioners can employ psychological type to help leaders meet these challenges are briefly discussed.     

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE IN AN EMERGING MARKET: THE CASE OF ISRAEL

Despite significant capital-market reforms in the mid-1980s, the Israeli government and banks continue to play an unusually dominant role in Israeli financial markets. Israeli banks operate as merchant banks and, through pyramid structures of ownership, control large segments of manufacturing, construction, insurance, and services. In addition, the banks dominate all facets of the capital market, including underwriting, brokerage, investment advice, and the management of mutual and provident funds.
Because of this dominance by the banks, several important mechanisms of corporate governance are missing. There is no effective market for corporate control; institutional investors have little incentive to monitor corporate managers; and those managers in turn have little incentive to improve firm performance and increase shareholder value.
To be sure, there has been an impressive wave of IPOs on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) in the 1990s. But those firms' stocks have substantially underperformed the market since going public, and many "higher-quality" Israeli firms have chosen in recent years to list their securities on the NASDAQ and not at home. The main reason the most promising Israeli firms go public in the U.S. is because that is where U.S. and other foreign investors want to buy them; such investors want the assurances that come with the U.S. corporate governance system.     

Ethical Aspects of Internal Auditing

This article is intended to emphasize several ethical issues relating to the activities of the internal auditor. The points of view expressed relate mainly to the public sector of Israel. Beyond the discussion of the specific issues against its unique Israeli background (Internal Audit Law), the discussion throws light on general problems that have not yet been solved.     

Oversight Ethics: The Case of Business Licensing

The ethics research community has all but ignored issues of oversight ethics – the vices and virtues of overseers. This study develops a conceptual framework for exploring the ethics of oversight and provides insights into the design of codes of ethics for oversight institutions and for overseers. Analysis of business licensing in Israel reveals prospective and retrospective oversight ethics problems at the levels of national and local policy and implementation: Overseers failed to act on knowledge of breaches of business licensing stipulations and took action known to be slow and ineffective; policymakers neglected their duty to enact significant policy change in an oversight system that was clearly not working. Partially as a result of these oversight failures, over one third of Israeli businesses are unlicensed, 23 people were killed in the collapse of an unlicensed banquet hall, 2 major fires erupted in the same shopping mall, and a fire in a fertilizer warehouse very nearly became a mega-disaster.     

Nontechnological innovation in urban transit: A comparison of some alternatives

Transit alternatives, including conventional technology used in innovative ways, are compared on the basis of full costs (capital and operating costs plus user time costs). Bus wagon jitneys are estimated to have lower full costs than conventional buses for short-haul, low-density residential collection or inner-city circulation, particularly at higher travel time values. Rail rapid transit has much higher full costs than express bus for suburban CBD commuters. Rail's much higher capital and operating costs buy virtually identical user time costs for the entire commuter trip.