Preferences for redistribution, as well as the generosities of welfare states, differ significantly across countries. In this paper, we test whether there exists a feedback process of the economic regime on individual preferences. We exploit the quot;experimentquot; of German separation and...

This paper examines the performance of the German economy and the role of the regulation and welfare state policies in affecting its performance. While the German economy is still strong, incentives in place are likely to impair future German competitiveness and productivity

As much like other industrialized countries, in recent decades the employment rate in Germany for those aged 55 to 69 had been declining first to considerably rise again afterwards. This paper investigates the role of structural policy changes, in particular reforms of the pension system, since...

This study grounds the establishment of EMU and the euro in the context of the history of international monetary cooperation and of monetary unions, above all in the U.S., Germany and Italy. The purpose of national monetary unions was to reduce transactions costs of multiple currencies and...

In this paper, based on the experience of ten European countries, we study the relevance of seigniorage revenues in the recent past, and we speculate about their importance in the near future. We find that the members of the European community differ widely in the way they manage monetary...

Pay-as-you-go Social Security is typically characterized as a universal defined benefit pension program. Implicit in this characterization is a sense that the participant%u2019s investment in future benefits is somehow guaranteed, or safe from risk. This study develops the concept of...

Incentive effects of pension systems are usually estimated under the assumption that the institutional environment provides a single optimal 'pathway' for retirement. However, many countries provide competing pathways which may include several early retirement options in addition to normal...

Germany still has a very generous public pay-as-you-go pension system. It is characterized by early effective retirement ages and very high effective replacement rates. Most workers receive virtually all of their retirement income from this public retirement insurance. Costs are almost 12...