Estonia is widely regarded as a paramount example for a successful transformation of a socialist economic system to a functioning market economy. Against the backdrop of this positive image which contrasts strongly with the crisis scenarios in Southern Europe the remaining problems of Estonia...

The stock of public debt in some developed countries continues to increase because of a lack of tax revenues and the burdens of social security. Many of those developed countries suffer from lower birth rates. Child allowances might help to raise fertility, leading to higher tax revenue in the...

This paper examines five problems with the inflation indexing procedures used by the Social Security Administration of the United States in taking inflation into account when calculating Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Benefits. Because of Problem #1, the commingling of unindexed with...

In Germany persons who receive public assistance (Sozialhilfe) may keep only a small part of income from employment above a certain amount. This means that for some persons living on welfare the economic incentives to look for employment are rather weak. This working paper discusses different...

The paper compares the pay-as-you-go system and a capital funded system of old age insurance. The capital funded system has a higher rate of return. Pension income can be obtained at lower costs for the individual. This implies efficiency gains in terms of higher savings and reduced distortion...

There are only few estimates of the returns on contributions to the German public pension System (GPPS). Those that are published ränge between nominal rates of future returns between about 4,5 % and 48 %, indicating that GPPS treats different groups of people differently. The authors develop a...

The paper presents labor productivities in the member countries of Euroland. The result is that there is quite a divergence in labor productivities (per head) in the European Monetary Union. The Netherlands and Italy reach 85 percent of the West German level, Spain 62 and Portugal 35. This...

This study investigates the role of stratification of health and income in the social cost of health-related early retirement, as evidenced in the German Socio-economic Panel (GSOEP). We interpret early retirement as a mechanism to limit work-related declines in health that allows poorer and...

During the 1990s, some important European countries such as Italy and Sweden radically transformed their public pension systems by adopting defined-contribution rules while retaining a pay-as-you-go financial architecture. The paper inquires into the theoretical properties of such notional...