For policy reforms to increase a society's welfare, reliable information on people's preferences and expectations is crucial. Representative opinion polls, often involving simplifed questions about the complex topics under debate, are an important source of information for both policy-makers and...

German Abstract:Simulationsmodelle der Gesetzlichen Rentenversicherung (GRV) berücksichtigen die Heterogenität des Versichertenbestandes bisher kaum. Insbesondere die Einkommensheterogenität blieb bislang unberücksichtigt. In diesem Papier wird das Rentensimulationsmodell MEA-PENSIM um eine...

German Abstract Die Corona-Pandemie 2020 wird ähnlich wie die Finanzkrise 2008 auch deutliche Spuren in der gesetzlichen Rentenversicherung hinterlassen. Diese treten aufgrund der Rentenanpassungsformel mit 1 bis 2 Jahren Verzögerung ein und sind stark asymmetrisch zugunsten der...

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...

This study examines how knowledge about institutional settings and their reform affects the effectiveness of those reforms. We examine this question in the context of social security, the largest social insurance program in Europe, by exploiting time and cross-country variation in pension...

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...

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...

This paper studies the structural differences between implicit and explicit government debt in a two-generations-overlapping model with stochastic factor-prices. If a government can issue safe bonds and new claims to wage-indexed social security to service a given initial obligation, there...