Expenditure of the German statutory health insurance scheme will increase significantly in the future. In order to keep the system financially sound, current law plans to levy income independent surcharges. These will be complemented by a tax-financed social compensation scheme. In this paper,...

Just a few months after the federal elections in Germany, the so called pension package entered into force. It mainly contains three measures: higher pensions for mothers with children born before 1992 ("mother pension"), a reduced retirement age for persons who contributed to the pension system...

There is an intensive debate about old-age poverty in Germany that has induced political parties to develop proposals for higher pensions of poor pensioners in light of the federal elections of September 2013. In addition, several proposals from economists aim at reforming the pension system in...

Zukünftig ist mit einem spürbaren Anstieg der Ausgaben der Gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung (GKV) zu rechnen, dem ein entsprechender Einnahmeanstieg gegenüberstehen muss. Nach geltendem Recht werden dazu die bereits gesetzlich verankerten, aber derzeit noch nicht flächendeckend...

There is an intensive debate about old-age poverty in Germany that has induced political parties to develop proposals for higher pensions of poor pensioners in light of the federal elections of September 2013. In addition, several proposals from economists aim at reforming the pension system in...

In the summer of 2014 Germany will witness the most substantial expansion of pension expenditures since the 1950s. Yet, while this reform package was motivated mainly by the dismal prospect of rising old age poverty rates, it does little to alleviate this problem. On the contrary, its two...

The present paper quantifies the economic consequences of eliminating the system of income splitting in Germany. We apply a dynamic simulation model with overlapping generations where single and married agents have to decide on labor supply and homework facing income and lifespan risk. The...

The present paper quantifies the importance of family structures for the analysis of social security. For this reason we introduce home production as well as stable and unstable families into the standard stochastic overlapping generation model and simulate with each model version a move from...

Recent reforms that aim at reducing the upcoming burdens of population ageing might seriously harm low income individuals. An increase in old-age poverty and disability will be the result. Under this prospect, the present paper quantitatively characterizes the optimal progressivity of unfunded...