Social Science > Demography
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Liechtenstein’s pension system is structured around a three-pillar framework designed to provide a balanced, sustainable, and secure retirement income. This well-capitalized system aims to safeguard a basic income level for all employees while encouraging supplemental private savings and income.
The Malagasy education system is today at a critical crossroads. With a significant number of Malagasy children still outside of the education system, a poor and declining level of academic proficiency among students, as well as low primary school completion rate, urgent and bold reforms are needed. In line with the new Orientation Law for Madagascar's Education System (LOSEM)2, the Malagasy Ministry of National Education (MEN) identified three strategic pillars as key to strengthening basic education in the country: i) availability of well-trained, motivated, and competent teachers, ii) effective learning time (in terms of hourly volume) and quality (in terms of an effective teaching approach and academic remediation), and iii) learning conditions favorable to the development and fulfillment of learners. This paper focuses on the first strategic axis. After an overview of education attainment in Madagascar, it examines the link between education and growth with an emphasis on teachers’ training It finds that doubling the share of qualified primary school teachers could raise per capita real GDP growth by around 2.5 to 3.1 percentage points in Madagascar. The paper then quantifies the spending needs for recruiting and training primary school teachers, with focus on current unqualified teachers, to meet the country’s projected needs over the next 6 years and finally draws some policy implications.
Access to top performers sets an upper bound on a country’s aspirations
The rise of financial technologies—fintech—could have transformative effects on the financial landscape, expanding the reach of services beyond the confines of geography and creating new competitive sources of finance for households and firms. But what makes fintech grow? Why do some countries have more financial innovation than others? In this paper, I use a comprehensive dataset to investigate the emergence and spread of fintech in a diverse panel of 98 countries over the period 2012–2020. This empirical analysis helps ascertain economic, demographic, technological and institutional factors that enable the development of fintech. The magnitude and statistical significance of these factors vary according to the type of fintech instrument and the level of economic development (advanced economies vs. developing countries). Finally, these findings reveal that policies and structural reforms can help promote financial innovation and cultivate fintech ventures—particularly by strengthening technological and institutional infrastructures and reducing cybersecurity threats.