Philip Booth discusses his book on pensions, Pension Provision: Government Failure Around the World, which surveys the results of government intervention in the market for retirement income provision throughout the world. He starts by looking at high-income democracies in which governments have, to a large degree, taken over the function of providing pensions. He finds that state provision crowds out private provision and places a considerable fiscal burden on developed country governments. This fiscal burden is then combined with complex regulatory systems that are imposed on the private sector and which make pensions incomprehensible.