Faire Abschläge in der gesetzlichen Rentenversicherung

The so called actuarial adjustments of public pension benefits to the retirement age are quite controversial in the German retirement insurance system. This article aims to shed light on the technical details in order to help our readers to determine for themselves what the "right" adjustments are. This depends, as so often, on the view of the beholder. Judged from the view of a public retirement insurance, which applies a very low discount rate, the German adjustments are indeed about actuarially correct. All other points of view, however, require substantially higher adjustments than currently legislated. To be incentive neutral, the actuarial adjustments should be at least 50% higher since workers are likely to use discount rates which are at least as high as the capital market interest rate and probably much higher. Higher adjustments are also implied by economic growth and majority voting considerations.