The present paper compares the distributional and risk-sharing consequences of two pension reform proposals in Germany which both aim to improve the sustainability of the current system by introducing demographic variables to the benefit calculation. While the first reform proposes a so-called...

The present paper compares the distributional and risk-sharing consequences of two pension reform proposals in Germany which both aim to improve the sustainability of the current system by introducing demographic variables to the benefit calculation. While the first reform proposes a so-called...

Introduced 20 years ago as a part of the 2001 pension reform, the Riester pension is meant to function as an essential component of the German pension system with the aim of compensating for decreasing public pensions. However, data collected by the SOEP show that this objective has not yet been...

Introduced 20 years ago as a part of the 2001 pension reform, the Riester pension is meant to function as an essential component of the German pension system with the aim of compensating for decreasing public pensions. However, data collected by the SOEP show that this objective has not yet been...

While the health risks associated with smoking are well known, the impact on income distributions is not. This paper extends the literature by examining the distributional effects of a behavioral choice, in this case smoking, on net marginal Social Security tax rates (NMSSTR). The results show...

This paper exploits a natural policy experiment to directly identify the crowding out effects of public transfers on the incidence and level of private transfers. The introduction of a large social security program in Taiwan is used to estimate the effect of an exogenous increase in government...

The paper first discusses the main sources of concern for people in the perspective of professional mobility abroad as they result from the analysis of the Eurobarometer survey, wave 75.1 of 2011. Second, it tests whether portability of social security within Europe is a determinant of intra-EU...

The typical social security program is designed as follows: (1) It is organized as a pay-asyou-go system. (2) It is financed with a payroll tax. (3) Employers and employees share the tax. (4) Benefits are largely independent of asset income. (5) Benefits are increasing with the taxes paid. (6)...

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)’s Pensim2 model is a dynamic microsimulation model. The principal purpose of this model is to estimate the future distribution of pensioner incomes, thus enabling analysis of the distributional effects of proposed changes to pension policy. This paper...

The current Labour Government was elected in 1997 with few specific social security proposals. This paper argues that after five years, consistent trends in social security policy have emerged: there is a willingness to increase benefits; a “work-first” focus; increasing centrality for...