Retirement behaviour has been the focus of attention of much microeconomic research in recent years. At the same time, most industrialized countries are struggling with reforming their retirement systems to counteract adverse demographic shocks. Early retirement is an important aspect both in explaining retirement behaviour and in forecasting the future of welfare systems. In particular, early retirement is related to an important policy puzzle: it may be optimal to increase the legal retirement age, however we do not know enough of the behavioural response of workers to policy changes and whether these would be effective measures to counteract future fiscal imbalances. Social security systems (and many private pension plans) in Europe have encouraged early exits. This paper reviews the empirical literature on early retirement, with particular reference to OECD countries. The basic message emerging from our work is that much could be learnt by having better quality data, in particular micro-level data that could be used to estimate behavioural responses having under control the many factors affecting retirement decisions, including institutional factors and allowing for full cross country comparability.

The Russian theatre has undergone several phases of development since the demarcation from the past, as represented by Alexander Vampilov. To begin with, the theatre preferred dramatization of modern literature, but this gave way to consideration of the paradoxes of life, often absurdist. Then, with the end of the Soviet system, there were the chernukha, black plays, particularly of Shipenko, Ugarov and Knjazev. More recently still, the ‘scenic reading’ of plays explored the suitability of various life-conflicts for drama. ‘August’ by Timophei Khmeljev concerned the inhabitants of an old dacha near Moscow. The pattern was related to Chekhov and Nietzsche. Kazantsev's ‘That this world’ and Razumovskaya's ‘Biography’ concerned life after death. Alexander Stroganov's ‘Ornithology’ relates human and bird life. Russian drama is in a very active and explorative phase, trying to catch a lost happiness.

This paper traces the presence of fin de siècle Wilde in the postmodernist fin de millénaire a century after his death. He is still alive, not only with scholars and critics but, more importantly, with a wider public and with writers and film makers who keep re-inventing him in their novels, plays and films, radicalizing him into a postmodernist avant la lettre. This ‘wilder’ Wilde is studied here in recent biopics, bioplays and biofictions, such as Peter Ackroyd's The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde or Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love, as well as in re-writings of his texts, such as in Joe Orton's What the Butler Saw or Mark Ravenhill's Handbag.

This paper critically reviews seven productions at Avignon 2000. The first was ‘Le chant perdu des petit riens’. This corresponds to visual and tactile perception bound to the hand and skin. ‘Le Petit Köchel’ is a story of Mozart devoured by the Heifetz sisters, two virtuoso violinists. The non-lyrical dry writing is made up of very dry statements that distance the observer; the result seems to resolve into an attractive ‘skin effect’ and a repulsive ‘bone effect’. In the ‘Ruines romaines’ relations between people are a field of ruins; individuals are obsessed by bad feelings and disgust. Bones stick out to signify the excessive fixity of ideals. In ‘Terres promises’ the enigma of textual and scenic images overwhelms the spectator; the subject wants to be guided by an organizing principle, the resemblances are explored at multiple levels. In ‘La Peau d'Elisa’ the relationship of flesh and clothing is emphasized; the main character can only communicate after eye contact. ‘Andromaque’ is a modern interpretation of a great classic. Finally ‘La Mouette’ shows the heroine immersed in feathers from a disembowelled pillow; the ambiguity of meaning is emphasized and the production is maintained between intellectuality and sensuality.