In the first years of transition the pension reform was not the main issue of political agenda for the post-communist governments. But since the mid-1990s, the debates on the future of post-socialist pension systems intensified. Prominent role in shaping the debates was played by "new pension orthodoxy" promoted by international financial institutions (IFI), especially the World Bank. The main elements of "new pension orthodoxy" were the necessity of privatization of pension systems and the need to reduce expenditures (via raising retirement age, downsizing benefit level, etc.). During 1998-2008, 14 post-communist economies adopted the model of privatized pension system.

Decisions to privatize pension systems usually was made not on the basis of the prior analysis, but as a result of beliefs in some key arguments of the advocates of "new pension orthodoxy". In other words, the discourse was more influential than the analysis. The rhetoric of IFIs (as expressed, for example, in the most significant publication on pension reforms during 1990-2000s, "Averting the old age crisis" (1994) by World Bank) was constructed to convince that pension privatization was the only feasible option to avoid the collapse of pension systems in the long-run. Besides, it was argued, privatization of pension system would help to develop financial sector and stimulate economic growth.

After global crisis of 2008 several economies of the region scaled back pension privatization and increased the level of public pension provision. However, despite the crisis of ideas of "new pension orthodoxy", the discourse still plays important role in shaping political agenda. For example, in Russia it was used in order to raise the retirement age in 2018.

The task of the paper is to consider the role and impact of economic theories in setting the normative vision of an institutional system that precedes the elaboration and implementation of specific policies in the actual systems.