Pension benefit rules depend on individual history far more than taxes do, and age plays a much larger role in pension determination than in tax determination. Apart from some simulation studies, theoretical studies of optimal tax design typically contain neither a mandatory pension system nor...

The recent financial crisis and historical record suggest important lessons about the design of national pension systems. First, wide fluctuation in asset returns makes it hard for well-informed savers to select a saving rate or a sensible investment strategy for DC pensions. Workers who follow...

In this paper, we consider how the retirement age as well as a tax financed pension system ought to respond to a change in the standard deviation of the length of life. In a first best framework, where a benevolent government exercises perfect control over the individuals' labor supply and...

We construct a tractable discrete-time overlapping generations model of a closed economy and use it to study government redistribution of accidental bequests and private annuities in general equilibrium. Individuals face longevity risk as there is a positive probability of passing away before...

We analyze the effect of means-tested benefits on annuitization decisions. Most industrialized countries provide a subsistence level consumption floor in old age, usually in the form of means-tested benefits. The availability of such means-tested payments creates an incentive to cash out...

Public pay-as-you-go pensions still form the dominant pillar of old-age provision in Germany. This is in marked contrast to the situation in Anglo-Saxon countries. It has advantages if labour markets are strong, e.g., following a quick recovery from the Great Recession. It has disadvantages, as...

There exists a wide variety of tax treatments of pensions across the world. And the reasons for such a range of regimes are not clear. This note reviews the general principles of pension taxes and analyses the theoretical foundations of why pension incomes ought to be taxed specifically. To do...

A central question for pension design is how benefits should vary with the age of retirement beyond early eligibility age. It is often argued that in order to be neutral with respect to individual retirement decisions benefits should be actuarially fair, that is, the present value of additional...

In this paper we address the question how the generosity of the benefit rule of the German public pension system has changed during the past three decades and how this development can be explained by demographic changes. Firstly, we illustrate the political risk of benefit rule changes for...