With extraordinarily good timing, the Economics section of the British Association, meeting in Exeter in September 2004, chose to look at pension reform. The newspapers were full of stories about the forthcoming Turner Report on pension reform. At the event, which was organised by Richard Blundell, President of the Economics section in 2004 and Director of the ESRC Centre for the Microeconomic Analysis of Public Policy at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), a phalanx of Whitehall officials turned up to listen to the debate. The five papers reprinted in this special edition of Fiscal Studies show the reason: pensions reform is a deeply intractable problem, not just in Britain but in many other countries. These papers explore the problem, but also suggest some possible solutions - all of which require political courage.