It has repeatedly been proposed to reduce conventional pay-as-you-go-systems to a base level, leaving advanced retirement provision for private funded systems. However, pay-asyou-go systems are, in a sense, one way roads, with no available Pareto efficient way out. The paper discusses a combined...

Trotz steigender Wirtschaftsleistung hat sich die Lebenszufriedenheit in Deutschland seit Beginn der 90er Jahre nicht erhöht, in Westdeutschland ist sie sogar gesunken. Mehr materieller Wohlstand bedeutet also nicht automatisch mehr Wohlstand im Sinne von Lebensglück. Was aber sind dann die...

I use my "Viking Village" macroeconomic model for examining the economic meaning of the so-called Target-balances in the EMU. While some authors like H.W. Sinn and Thomas Mayer interpret them as liabilities that must be redeemed and paid interest on, others like Marcel Fratzscher, Martin Hellwig...

Trotz jahrzehntelanger Reformdiskussion hat es der Gesetzgeber bisher nicht geschafft, die Grundsteuer verfassungskonform zu gestalten. Das Bundesverfassungsgericht hat die bestehende Grundsteuer für verfassungswidrig erklärt, weil sie auf stark veralteten Grundstückswerten beruht. Die...

The reasons for the current financial crisis are analysed and a proposal for financing a bad bank is made. In particular, it is proposed to give the banks in trouble government zero bonds rather than cash in exchange for their toxic assets. The term of the zero bonds is determined individually...

A model is developed which explains deep recessions like the recent crisis by a lack of economic confidence, going along with a high liquidity preference of both private households and the private banking system. Thus the paper argues for a new form of Keynesian policy, which rests on monetary...

This paper discusses the instrument of equalisation claims, which has successfully been used in two previous German debt crises as a method for stabilizing the balance sheets of financial institutions. A modern version of this method would swap temporarily illiquid assets for government bonds...