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...

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...

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)...

We measure accruals in defined benefit (DB) pension plans for public and private sector workers in Britain, using typical differences in scheme rules and sector-specific lifetime age-earnings profiles by sex and educational group. We show not just that coverage by DB pension plans is greater in...

This paper examines the choice of pension scheme and job mobility in Britain. Workers in Britain can choose to belong wholly to the social security (public pension) programme, or to a company-provided plan (occupational pension), or to purchase their own individual pension. We use household...

This paper investigates how parametric reform in a pay-as-you-go pension system with a tax benefit link affects retirement incentives and work incentives of prime-age workers. We find that postponed retirement tends to harm incentives of prime-age workers in the presence of a tax benefit link,...

The paper develops an overlapping generations model that highlights interactions between social security, unemployment and growth. The social security system has two components: old age pensions and unemployment insurance. Pensions have a direct effect on economic growth. Both pensions and...

We examine how labor immigration affects public pensions under centralized wage setting. We show that immigration improves the sustainability of pay-as-you-go pensions if and only if total employment declines. This occurs if the labor demand elasticity exceeds the unemployment rate.

Although immigration of workers generates a positive externality on members of domestic pension systems, many countries are very reluctant to allow foreigners into their labor markets. In a political economic framework, we explain this voting outcome by considering a young unskilled median voter...