The upcoming demographic crisis in Germany demands fundamentalreforms of the pension system. In a democracy, reforms are, however, onlyfeasible when they are supported by the majority of the electorate. Todetermine whether the majority is in favor of reforms of the pension system,we calculate...

Public pay-as-you-go pensions still form the dominant pillar of old-age provision in Germany. This is in marked contrast to the situation in Anglo-Saxon countries. It has advantages if labour markets are strong, e.g., following a quick recovery from the Great Recession. It has disadvantages, as...

In this paper we study the implications of population ageing in an economy with a sizeable non-traded goods sector. To this effect a highly stylized micro-founded macro model is constructed in which the age structure of the population plays a non-trivial role. The model distinguishes separate...

Although the population in Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) is still younger, on average, than in Western Europe, the CEEC also have to cope with challenges caused by the demographic shift towards an ageing, shrinking population. Some countries are ageing even faster than Western...

In this paper we exploit a cohort-specific pension reform to estimate the causal labour market effects of changes in the financial incentives to retire. In particular, we analyze the effects of the introduction of cohort-specific deductions for early retirement on female retirement, employment...