This paper describes the ifo Tax and Transfer Behavioral Microsimulation Model (ifoMSM-TTL), a policy microsimulation model for Germany. The model uses household microdata from the German Socio-Economic Panel and firm data from the German Linked Employer-Employee Dataset. This microsimulation...

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of the tax and transfer systems in the European Union and the US to act as an automatic stabilizer in the current economic crisis. We find that automatic stabilizers absorb 38 per cent of a proportional income shock in the EU, compared to 32 per cent in the...

If there is a means tested basic income for old age, households will tend to reduce precautionary savings to an inefficiently low level. This might serve as a justification for a public pension system. In a representative agent framework, indeed, the introduction of a compulsory pension s ystem...