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respectively amounted to 0.41 percent and 0.48 percent of GDP in 2008. Total annual contributions amounted to 0.74 percent of the wage bill in 2008. However, because the ATP was created in 1964 and has universal coverage, its total assets have grown steadily and now exceed 32 percent of GDP.3 The ATP is one of the largest financial institutions in Denmark. Three other statutory supplementary schemes have been created over time to supplement the benefits obtained from the social pension and the ATP. The most important was, until recently, the Special Pension Savings Scheme (SÌrlige Pensionsopsparing, or SP), which was introduced in 1998 to dampen economic activity and increase savings. However, contributions to the SP were suspended for 2004 and 2005. The suspension was later extended to 2007. In 2009, SP participants were allowed to withdraw their balances, and the scheme will be closed down in 2010. The third supplementary scheme in terms of importance is the Employees’ Capital Fund (Lønmodtagernes Dyrtidsfond, or LD), which was introduced in 1977. It aimed at changing the then prevailing highly inflationary practice of automatically adjusting wages and salaries to costof-living increases. The LD froze these cost-of-living adjustments in a special pension scheme, which involved creating individual accounts, investing the saved amounts, and paying out the accumulated capital as lump sums on retirement. The LD has not received any contributions or new members since 1980. About half its members have retired by now, but about 1 million workers still have LD accounts. The scheme is managed by LD Pensions, a public sector institution that is similar to the ATP. The total assets of LD correspond to less than 2 percent of GDP. The fourth supplementary scheme is a narrow voluntary scheme, known as the Supplementary Labor Pension (Supplerende arbejdsmarkedspension, or SUPP). SUPP was introduced in 2003 for people who had taken early retirement prior to that year and who wanted to increase their future pension income by saving through tax-favored accounts.4 The scheme covers about 250,000 people, representing 7 percent of the population between 18 and 65 years of age. The pension provider for SUPP can be freely chosen among ATP and private pension institutions (although not all of the latter participate in SUPP). One-third of contributions are made by the pensioners themselves and two-thirds by the government. The benefits are similar to those of the ATP: either a life annuity or a lump sum, depending on the size of the account balance. The rate of contribution is subject to a maximum of about 3 percent of the early retirement benefit.