Aus den Reihen der SPD und Union kommen aktuell zwei Vorschläge, die einerseits die langfristige Stabilität des Beitragssatzes und andererseits eine Leistungsausweitung vorsehen. Der eine stammt von Karl Lauterbach und Andrea Nahles, der andere von der bayrischen Sozialministerin Christa...

We employ German Sample Survey Income data to examine income inequality and the financial situation of elderly citizens for the period from 1978 to 2003, focussing on differences between retired and non-retired elderly and between elderly with residence in the Old and the New German Laender....

During the next decades the populations of most developed countries will grow older as a result of the low level of birth rates since the 1970s and/or the continuously increasing life expectancy. We show within a Generational Accounting framework how unsustainable the public finances of France,...

Um die fiskalische Nachhaltigkeit der Politik bzw. einzelner Reformmaßnahmen zu messen, hat die Wirtschaftswissenschaft in den letzten Jahren mehrere Instrumente eingeführt. Hierzu zählt auch die Generationenbilanz, die Anfang der 1990er-Jahre in den USA entwickelt wurde. Der vorliegende...

In 1999, eleven European countries formed the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU); they abandoned their national currencies and adopted a new common currency, the euro. Several recent papers argue that the introduction of the euro has led (by itself) to a sizable and statistically significant...

The paper discusses key elements of optimal central bank design and applies its findings to the Eurosystem. A particular focus is on the size of monetary policy committees, the degree of centralization, and the representation of relative economic size in the voting rights of regional (or...

We examine the role of money in the policies of the ECB, using introductory statements of the ECB President at the monthly press conferences during 1999-2004. Over time, the relative amount of words devoted to the monetary analysis has decreased. Our analysis of indicators of the monetary policy...

Monetary policy in the euro area is conducted within a multi-country, multi-cultural, and multi-lingual context involving multiple central banking traditions. How does this heterogeneity affect the ability of economic agents to understand and to anticipate monetary policy by the ECB? Using a...