A popular proposal for reforming social security is to supplement or replace traditional publicly financed benefits with a new system of mandatory defined-contribution private pensions. Proponents claim that private plans offer better returns than traditional social security. To achieve higher...

Die Finanzierung der staatlichen Alterssicherungssysteme, die in allen Mitgliedsländern der Europäischen Union zum Kern der Systeme der sozialen Sicherung gehören, rückt immer mehr in den Mittelpunkt sozialpolitischer Diskussionen. Hierzu tragen drei Faktoren bei:Erstens, die für alle...

This paper provides an overview of the work of Herbert Simon and his ideas about rational decision making. By his own standards, Simon is an economist who works in the tradition of Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall. The central theme in Simon’s research is how human beings organize themselves in...

Norwegian administrative data are used to evaluate the impact of a doubling of the threshold in the retirement earnings test. We find almost no impact on the extensive margin, but a positive effect on the intensive margin. This positive effect is uneven over the earnings distribution, and...

We analyze the impact of population aging on Japan's household saving rate and on its public pension system and the impact of that system on Japan's household saving rate and obtain the following results: first, the age structure of Japan's population can explain the level of, and past and...