Pension Reforms in Transitional Resource-Rich Economies: Implementation and Evaluation Aspects

This paper aims to examine the relationships among the three stages of public policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. The analysis will be based on the case study of Kazakhstan's pension reform. At the beginning, the essay provides the essential terms with their definitions, and then continues with a discussion regarding the stages of public policymaking whilst demonstrating all of them (i.e., formulation, implementation and evaluation) in the context of Kazakhstan's pension reform. The successful implementation of the pension systems requires a number of economic, institutional and political pre-conditions. Besides the adequate legal and regulatory framework, the establishment of which can take time, there is one important pre-condition that Kazakhstan lacks an active financial market. The development of privately managed pillars would require at least rudimentary capital markets and an adequate regulatory framework to limit an investment risk.