The aging of the population shakes the confidence in the economic viability of pay-as-you-go social security systems. We demonstrate how in a political-economy framework the shaken cofidence leads to the downsizing of the social security-system, and to the emergence of supplemental individual...

The European Monetary Union (EMU) will involve socialization of the existing seigniorage wealth of the national central banks, because the Euro will have to be bought by these banks in exchange for assets which have been accumulated in the historical process of money creation. This socialization...

While the ECB helped mitigate the euro crisis in the aftermath of Lehman, it has stretched its monetary mandate and moved into fiscal territory. This text describes and summarizes the crucial role played by the ECB in the intervention spiral resulting from its bid to manage the crisis. It also...

As a result of the Balassa effect relative prices change rapidly between and within the euro countries. Thus it is impossible to find a common monetary policy that will result in price stability in all countries. Based on empirical estimates of the Balassa model, the paper calculates a minimum...

This paper reconsiders the determinants of the exchange rate by studying the historical episode after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Testing a modified portfolio balance model, we attribute the strength of the deutschmark in the early nineties and the puzzling decline of the euro during its...

Based on explicit present value calculations, the paper criticizes the view that the PAYGO system wastes economic resources. In present value terms, there is nothing to be gained from a transition to funded system even though the latter offers a permanently higher rate of return. The sum of the...

In a static setup, migration of unskilled labor may be resisted by the entire native-born population because, being relatively low earners, migrants are net beneficiaries of the fiscal system. However, the paper shows that with a pay-as-you-go pension, an important pillar of the welfare state,...

It is argued that a PAYGO system may have useful allocative functions in that it serves as an insurance against not having children and as an enforcement device for rotten kid' who are unwilling to pay their parents a pension. It is true that the system has amoral hazard effect in terms of...

Migration has important implications for the financial soundness of the pension system, which is an important pillar of the welfare state. While it is common sense to expect that young migrants, even if low-skilled, can help society pay the benefits to the currently elderly, it may nevertheless...

It is shown that the net fiscal externality created by an additional member of a pay-as-you-go pension system that is endowed with individual accounts equals the gross contributions" of this member. In Germany, this is an amount of about DM 175,000. The paper uses this" information to design a...