Can the aging problem be solved by a higher birth rate? While the popular notion -"if we have too many elderly we need more children in order to compensate for this"- seems plausible, the results of economic theory are ambiguous at best. This paper employs a quantitative macroeconomic simulation...

Individuals are exposed over the life cycle to considerable biometric, economic, family and political risks. Do we have the right institutions to cover these risks efficiently? We use the term "institutions" in a broad sense comprising individual saving, family help, private insurance and...

This study aims at estimating the losses in old-age wealth and forfeited returns. The analysis is based on the German SAVE study in 2008. In comparison to a scenario without the crisis individuals on average lost 4.3% of their financial wealth. Considering only wealth in investment classes...

In its annual report 2008/2009, the Council of Economic Advisors came forward with a proposal how to unify the German pension system. In this paper, we quantify the effects of this proposal. We show that the direction and size of the effects largely depend on the development of future wages. In...

Almost all OECD countries have pension reform at the top of their social policy agendas. This paper explores where empirical analysis might help to shed light on the central questions concerning pension reform. Copyright Verein fü Socialpolitik und Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2000