Due to its complexity and incomprehensibility the mechanism for the annual pension adjustment in Germany has experienced rising criticism. We compare the actual formula and alternative adjustment proposals on the basis of different criteria. It will become evident that the current formula is...

In the course of the ongoing debate regarding the critique of the German Riester pension the Swedish premium pension has often been referred to as a role model regarding potential amendments and reforms. The Swedish pension reform of 1998 has led ti a reorganization towards a stratified scheme,...

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...

This article gives exact general conditions for the existence of an interior optimum growth rate for population in the neoclassical two-generations-overlapping model. In an economy where high (low) growth rates of population lead to a growth path which is efficient (inefficient) there always...

We model the optimal reaction of a public PAYG pension system to demographic shocks. We compare the ex-ante first best and second best solution of a Ramsey planner with full commitment to the outcome under simple third best rules that mimic the pension systems observed in the real world. The...

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...

In the last decades, many governments have enacted flexible retirement reforms as a seemingly elegant way to increase older workers' labor supply. Börsch-Supan et al. (2018) use the synthetic control method to evaluate the effects of flexibility reforms from nine OECD countries that came into...

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...