This paper explores the welfare effects of a number of collective pension contracts, distinguishing between the two welfare effects. We find that collective schemes can be either superior or inferior to individual schemes. Collective pension contracts allow for intergenerational risk sharing...

type="main" xml:id="ecca12092-abs-0001" <p>Funded defined-benefit pensions add to welfare on account of providing intergenerational risk sharing, but lower it on account of inducing labour supply distortions. We show that a properly designed funded defined-benefit pension scheme involves a welfare...</p>

The credit crisis has reduced the funding ratios of Dutch pension funds to a historical minimum. Pension funds now face two challenges. The first is to timely restore funding ratios to safe levels without jeopardizing labour market conditions that also have worsened because of the crisis. The...

Most health insurance schemes use some sort of cost sharing to curb the moral hazard that is inherent to insurance. It is common to limit this cost sharing, by applying a deductible or a stop loss, for example. This can be motivated from an insurance perspective: without a cap, coinsurance...

From 1995 onward the financing scheme for specialist care in the Netherlands has moved from a fee-for-service scheme to a lump-sum budget scheme. This paper analyses the economic and welfare effects of this policy change. The paper adopts a model that integrates demand and supply considerations...

This document analyses the effects of ageing populations upon public finances. More specifically, it focuses on the implications of ageing for acute health care, long-term care, and public pension expenditure. It does so for 15 EU countries.  It pays particular attention to three novel...

Uncertainty in demographic developments lowers expected future welfare levels. Increasing current tax rates and decreasing expected future tax rates may compensate part of the welfare loss that is due to demographic uncertainty. In doing so, the government effectively pursues a precautionary...

It is well-known that co-payments in health insurance may increase social welfare by reducing moral hazard. Considerably less is known about the form co-payment schemes should ideally take. This paper investigates what co-payment rate and co-payment maximum characterize the optimal scheme,...

This paper presents stochastic simulations, i.e. simulations that combine the CGE model of the Dutch economy GAMMA with stochastic population projections, to quantify uncertainties surrounding the consequences of population ageing for Dutch public finances. The expected increase in the ratio of...

The ageing of the population jeopardises the sustainability of public finances in the Netherlands. The doubling of the ratio between the number of retirees and the number of workers destroys the balance between future public expenditure and tax revenues. Read also the accompanying <a href="http://www.cpb.nl/node/13346">press...</a>