The new Austrian pension system based on individual accounts is a clear improvement over the former system. A serious shortcoming of the new system, however, is that it does not react to demographic changes, in particular to increases in life expectancy. I contrast the Austrian and the Swedish...

This study examines the role of revaluation and adjustment factors in pension systems. The first part sheds light on the determination of revaluation and adjustment factors according to the General Social Security Act (Allgemeines Sozialversicherungsgesetz — ASVG) and how these factors have...

This study discusses important elements of Austria's recently harmonized statutory pension system. In particular, the author investigates in how far the new system responds to the twofold demographic challenge of declining birth rates and increasing life expectancy and what this means in terms...

This study examines the importance of wage staggering and wage leadership in the Austrian system of collective bargaining. Collective wage agreements in Austria generally remain valid for one year and are staggered; the highest concentrations of new agreements can be found in the months of...

This article discusses the most recent pension reforms in Austria, which were mainly triggered by the need to alleviate the budgetary pressure stemming from the age structure of the Austrian population. Using synthetic indicators, derived from the government’s budget constraint, the paper...

This study analyzes the results of the OeNB’s methods-of-payment survey of fall 2011 and compares them with the results of similar surveys from the years 1996, 2000 and 2005. The rapid development of cashless payment options in the 15 years that have passed between the first and last analyzed...

This study presents the results of a survey conducted in fall 2005 on the payment habits of Austrian households, comparing its findings with those of similar surveys carried out in 1996 and 2000. The focus is to analyze changes in the use of payment means over time and, on this basis, to assess...

In July 2010 the Oesterreichische Nationalbank hosted a workshop entitled “Consumer Payment Choice and the Demand for Money,” which provided insights into state-of-the-art research on payment habits and cash demand. The papers presented showed that there is a vast potential for new research...

The euro is already present throughout Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe today. Against this backdrop, the OeNB has been regularly conducting household opinion polls for years in the countries that make up this economic space. The survey questions place special emphasis on euro cash...

In the euro area countries, the euro cash changeover was accompanied by the development of a significant gap between actual inflation — as measured by the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) — and the inflation perceived by the general public; in Austria, this difference was...