Rising income inequality is an anglo Saxon problem. For most of the other OECD countries, earnings dispersion is rather persistent. Vertical mobility is to be taken into account. The paper also looks at the relationship of income inequality, growth and employment. It elaborates the point that...

This paper provides an account of the evolution of poverty and inequality during adjustment in Bolivia, covering the period 1985?99. It turns out that urban poverty declined somewhat after the initial stabilization phase that followed the hyperinflation in 1985. A similar evolution of per capita...

Germany's social security system is surveyed, its benefits and contributions are discussed. The expansion of this system in the last decades is described, its impact on employment and growth is studied and proposals for the reform of the system are discussed.

The paper analyzes why Germany experiences the high and sticky unemployment. It looks at wage policy and proposes a new approach to measure productivity growth when unemployment increases. It studies the position of trade unions and the institutional set-up of the labor market. It looks at the...

Sickness benefit ineome reduces an employee's opportunity costs of absence from work. In the Federal Republic of Germany the institutional arrangement was changed several times during the 1951-1998 period. This paper investigates the effects on sick leave behavior. According to the empirical...

We explore the far-reaching implications of replacing current unemployment benefit (UB) systems by an unemployment accounts (UA) system. Under the UA system, employed people are required to make ongoing contributions to their UAs and the balances in these accounts are available to them during...

In Deutschland dürfen Sozialhilfeempfänger nur einen kleinen Teil ihres Einkommens aus Erwerbstätigkeit oberhalb eines bestimmten Betrags behalten. Dies führt dazu, daß für einige Sozialhilfeempfänger nur schwache ökonomische Anreize zur Erwerbstätigkeit vorhanden sind. Dieses...

Wir präsentieren einen Vorschlag für die Neuausrichtung der Arbeitslosenunterstützung in Deutschland: die Einführung von Beschäftigungskonten. Anstatt Steuern/Beiträge zu zahlen, die die Arbeitslosenunterstützung finanzieren, zahlen Beschäftigte laufend auf Ihre Beschäftigungskonten...