Will it last?: an assessment of the 2011 Spanish pension reform using the Swedish system as benchmark

The aim of this paper is to make an assessment of the 2011 reform of the public pension system in Spain using the Swedish system as benchmark. With this end in mind, after a brief description of the Spanish system and some comments regarding certain data, the system's main contents are broken down and a critical examination made of the official view. An assessment is then carried out with the focus on four principles: equity, transparency, solvency and communication with the public. The main conclusion is that the reform was a wasted opportunity given that Spain has not taken advantage of the lessons learned in Sweden, it did not include any elements for improving the management of pay-as-you-go systems and it still leaves plenty of room for the practice known as “populism in pensions” to continue. A new parametric reform will be needed sooner rather than later.