Professional Affiliation

Senior International Trade Specialist, U.S. Department of Commerce

Expert Bio

Michael Corbin has nearly twenty years of experience in the international financial services and trade arena, the majority with the U.S. Department of Commerce's Office of Finance and Insurance Industries. He has extensive knowledge of financial services in the U.S. and globally, with expertise in the asset management, insurance and private pension sectors. He has been invited to speak on insurance and pension issues at the OECD’s technical seminars on Insurance and Private Pensions in Moscow and worked with various governments and industry associations in the CEE region. Most notably, he established and managed innovative programs in cooperation with U.S. industry to train Russian, Georgian and other Eurasian senior staff in asset and pension management products and practices.

Wilson Center Project

Global Private Pension Development: New Challenges and Opportunities

Project Summary

In the 1990s, the role of the state in providing pensions was significantly altered on a global basis with the introduction of mandatory private pension systems, often referred to as second pillar funds. Unfortunately, the financial crisis of 2008 exerted tremendous pressure on many emerging markets, particularly in the CEE countries, and exacerbated financial and capital market imbalances. As a result, a number of countries reacted to the pressures by eliminating their second pillars, often with controversial actions that lacked sufficient levels of transparency and violated established best practices. During his Fellowship at the Wilson Center, Michael Corbin will examine these pension reform reversals and examine their impact on retirement saving and capital market development in impacted countries.