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An Austrian national, is the Director of the Social Protection Department of the Human Development Network of the World Bank (since May 1997). This unit is, inter alia, in charge of the conceptual and strategic Bank work in the area of social risk management, covering pensions, labor market interventions, and social safety nets. In the area of pension, the unit provides intellectual and operational guidance for staff working on pensions in almost 60 countries and collaborates closely with other sectors in the Bank with specialized knowledge such as the financial sector and IFC. In recent years the unit developed a special software to assess the financial sustainability of pension schemes and reform alternatives (PROST: Pension Reform Option Simulation Toolkit), continues its work on knowledge management tools to accompany the pension reform process in client countries (Pension Reform Primers) which are accessible via the Bank's website (http://www.worldbank.org/pensions), and provides specialized training for Bank and clients' staff (such as the annual pension reform workshops at Harvard university).
He joined the Bank with a leave of absence from the University of Saarland (Germany) where he is the professor of economics and the Director to the European Institute. He was professor of economics at the University of Vienna and guest-professor at universities in Chile, Japan and the USA. As principal administrator at the OECD (1985-87), he wrote a comprehensive report on public pension reform in industrialized countries. At the IMF (1988-1990), he was heavily involved in fiscal and social security issues of Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria during the initial years of transition. Prior to joining the Bank he worked as a consultant on pension policy issues in 11 transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe, and he researched intensively the social, economic and financial market effects of the Chilean pension reform. Since joining the Bank he worked on pension reform issues in all regions and he was heavily involved in the design and negotiations of the World Bank's support programs in East Asia during the 1997/1999 financial crisis.
He has published 18 books and over 100 journal articles and contributions on social, fiscal and financial policy issues, including many in the pension area:
Pension Reform in Europe - Process and Progress, (2002, ed. with Michal Rutkowski), Washington, D.C. (The World Bank), in preparation.
New Ideas for Old-Age Security - Toward Sustainable Pension Systems in the 21st Century (2001, ed. with Joseph Stiglitz), Washington, D.C. (World Bank).
Reporting the implicit pension debt in middle and low income countries, Journal of Pension Management, 6(2001)/4, 355-348, with Palacios und A. Zviniene.
Individual Accounts as Social Insurance: A World Bank perspective, in: Scheil-Adlung X. (2001, ed.): Building Social Security - The Role of Privatization, ISSA (Geneva), with R. Palacios, 45-61
Extending Coverage in Multipillar Systems: Constraints and Hypotheses, Preliminary Evidence and Future Research, in: Holzman - Stiglitz (2001, eds.): New Ideas for Old-Age Security, Washington, D.C. (The World Bank), with T. Packard und J. Cuesta, 452-484.
The World Bank Approach to Pension Reform, International Social Security Review, 53(2000), No. 1, 11-34.
On the Economic Benefits and Fiscal Requirements of Moving from Unfunded to Funded Pensions, in: Buti, M., Franco, D. and Pench, L. (1999, eds.): The Welfare State in Europe, Cheltenham, UL. And Northampton, MA (Edward Elgar), 139-196.
Pension Reform, Financial Market Development, and Economic Growth: Preliminary Evidence from Chile, IMF Staff Papers 1997, June, 149-178.
Reforming Public Pensions / La Reforme des Regimes Publics de Pensions, (1988), Paris (OECD).
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