Not least due to the change in overall economic conditions, the employment of foreign workers in Western Europe has in recent years become increasingly controversial. The following two articles deal with different aspects of labour migration. Heinz Werner presents a survey of policies towards...

Over 2.3 mn foreign workers are now employed in the Federal Republic of Germany. They account for 10 p.c. of the total labour force. How many foreigners will work in the Federal Republic in future is necessarily a matter for conjecture. Labour market experts forecast that - depending on the rate...

Since 2002 the German government seeks to stimulate private retirement savings by means of special allowances and tax exemptions - the so-called Riester scheme. We apply matching and panel regression techniques to assess the impact of the Riester scheme on households' propensities to save in a...

Since 2002 the German government seeks to stimulate private retirement savings by means of special allowances and tax exemptions - the so-called Riester scheme. We apply matching and panel regression techniques to assess the impact of the Riester scheme on households' propensities to save in a...

We empirically investigate the distributional consequences of the Riester scheme, the main private pension subsidization program in Germany. We find that 38% of the aggregate subsidy accrues to the top two deciles of the population, but only 7.3% to the bottom two. Nonetheless the Riester scheme...

Angesichts der gesellschaftlichen Alterung ist es aus volkswirtschaftlicher Sicht unabdingbar, ältere Menschen stärker in das Wirtschaftsgeschehen zu integrieren, einerseits um dem sich abzeichnenden Fachkräftemangel bei Jüngeren entgegenzuwirken, andererseits um den Sozialstaat zu...

Since 2002 the German government has promoted private retirement saving plans by means of special subsidies and tax incentives (Riester scheme). This policy mainly targets low-income households. Using data from the German Socio-economic Panel, we scrutinize the impact of the Riester scheme on...

Since 2002 the German government seeks to stimulate private retirement savings by means of special allowances and tax exemptions – the so-called Riester scheme. We apply matching and panel regression techniques to assess the impact of the Riester scheme on households' propensities to save in a...