Following Chilean experiences as well as the World Bank suggestions post‑communist
Poland and post-collectivist Israel—underwent deep reforms which led
to the privatization of old age security. The aim of the article is to compare the Polish
and Israeli paths of pension privatization in the last thirty years. The main conclusions
are: (1) the economic, demographic and political environments at the moment
of the design and implementation of the pension reform were quite similar in both
countries; however (2) the scope and scale of the privatization was different: in Poland
there was only partial shift towards private pension system while in Israel full privatization
of the system was implemented; (3) the decisive factors were: the inertia of the
already existing pension systems and the power of foreign influencers; (4) the retreat
from privatization in Poland and the increase in Israel took place due to the different
mix of disadvantages of the new pension arrangements, short-term political aims and
international pressure.