Do business cycle fluctuations leave a role and a welfare case for an active stabilization policy by means of fiscal policy instruments? We address this issue in a two-sector open economy model with price-taking firms and imperfect competition in the labour market. Fiscal policies are shown to...

Within the frame of the Nordic welfare model, pension system design has taken very different routes. While the overall aims in terms of distribution and replacement rates are similar, the division of labour between defined benefit and contribution as well as pay-as-you-go versus funded schemes...

A growing literature explores reasons for rising wealth inequality, but disregards the role of pension systems despite their well-understood infiuence on life-cycle saving. In theory and according to available evidence, both pay-as-you-go (PAYG) and fully-funded (FF) pension schemes crowd out...

Denmark is often highlighted as a "flexicurity" country with lax employment protection legislation, generous unemployment insurance, and active labor market policies. This model has coped with the Great Recession and the Covid-19 pandemic, avoiding large increases in long-term and structural...

Across EU countries there is no general tendency for public investment to be crowded out by fiscal rules. The notion of investment in the public sector is different from the private sector, and it is problematic to base policy rules on the national account definition of investment. A Golden Rule...

Neue Entwicklungen der Theorie effizienter Kapitalmärkte In der Finanzliteratur herrscht die Hypothese vor, daß die Preise in Märkten für Finanzaktiva sämtlich verfügbare Information reflektieren. Ungeachtet ihrer Beliebtheit unterliegt der Hypothese eines effizienten Kapitalmarktes keine...

This paper analyses two reasons why inflation may interfere with price adjustment so as to create inefficiencies in resource allocation at low rates of inflation. The first argument is that the higher the rate of inflation the lower the likelihood that downward nominal rigidities are binding...

The welfare state is not merely a stand-in for missing markets; it can do a whole lot more. When generations overlap and the young must borrow to make educational investments, a dynamically-efficient welfare state, by taxing the middle-aged and offering a compensatory old-age pension, can...

Ungewisse Wechselkurspolitiken und Zinsfestsetzung Wir untersuchen, wie ungewisse Wechselkurspolitiken die Zinsdifferenzen zwischen Ländern beeinflussen, die einem gelenkten Wechselkurssystem angehören. Es wird gezeigt, daß der Zinssatz in einer kleinen offenen Volkswirtschaft gemessen an dem...

Socio-economic differences in longevity have fuelled a debate whether pension systems have a regressive bias favouring groups with a high life expectancy. We show that the distributional implications of such pooling depend critically on the benefit profile across age/time, which in turn is...