German Abstract: Die Rentenpolitik nimmt nach wie vor eine wichtige Stellung im Rahmen der sozialpolitischen Reformagenda auf beiden Seiten des Atlantiks ein. Sowohl in der Europäischen Union (EU) als auch in den Vereinigten Staaten (USA) stellt der demografische Wandel die traditionellen...

Financing pensions in the EU is a challenge. Many EU countries introduced private pensions schemes to compensate declining public pensions levels due to reforms made necessary by demographic change. In 2001, Germany introduced the Riester pension. Ten years after introduction the prevalence rate...

This paper provides an empirical analysis of what determines access to occupational pensions as perceived by workers. We investigate this issue in Germany, where workers have the legal right to an occupational pension since 2001, but many might lack the incentive or the ability to gather and...

In response to population aging, pay-as-you-go pensions are being reduced in almost all developed countries. In many countries, governments aim to fill the resulting gap with subsidized private pensions. This paper exploits the recent German pension reform to shed new light on the uptake of...

English Abstract: Over the past decades, combining pension benefits with work income has been made more accessible for pensioners in many European countries. The literature on working pensioners choosing a flexible transition into retirement is to date relatively sparse. This article adds to the...

English Abstract: Flexible retirement is supposed to increase labor supply of older workers without touching the third rail of pension politics, the highly unpopular increase of the retirement age. While this may have intuitive appeal, this paper shows that it might be wishful thinking. Economic...

English Abstract: I provide new evidence on the effect of retirement on health by exploring the panel dimension of three major old-age surveys. I constructed a harmonized dataset using all available waves of HRS, ELSA and SHARE data, which enables me to conduct comparative cross-country panel...