More than 1 out of 5 adult Social Security beneficiaries has served in the military, and veterans and their families comprise 35 percent of the beneficiary population. Policymakers are particularly concerned with the economic well-being of veterans and their family members, who may receive...

CDU/CSU und FDP haben in ihrem Koalitionsvertrag unter anderem vereinbart, "noch in dieser Legislaturperiode ein einheitliches Rentensystem in Ost und West" zu schaffen. Angesichts der Tatsache, daß der Rentenwert in Ostdeutschland mit 24,13 Euro um rund 11% niedriger liegt als in...

In seinem Kommentar nimmt Eckart Bomsdorf, Universität zu Köln, Stellung zu den Rentenreformplänen der Bundesregierung. Seiner Meinung nach enthält der Gesetzesentwurf sowohl Positives, z.B. bei der Erwerbsminderungsrente, als auch Widersprüchliches, z.B. bei der sogenannten Rente mit 63....

In this paper we analyze the influence that incentives play in the timing of the transition to retirement in Spain. We use the Continuous Sample of Working Histories 2006 (CSWH 'Muestra Continua de Vidas Laborales', in Spanish) to construct incentive measures from the Social Security provisions...

Many countries face the problem of how to reform social security systems to cope with increasing life expectancy. This raises questions concerning both distribution and risk sharing across generations. These issues are addressed within an OLG model with stochastic life expectancy across...

Conventional pension systems suffer from a design defect which makes them financially unsustainable, and a source of inefficiency for the economy as a whole. The paper outlines a second-best policy which includes a public pension system made up of two parallel schemes, a Bismarckian one allowing...

Verschiedene Faktoren bewirken eine Zunahme der Altersarmut in Deutschland, insbesondere in Ostdeutschland. Mit Daten des Sozio-oekonomischen Panel (SOEP) untersuchen wir Ursachen und Ausmaß der Altersarmut in Deutschland. Wir beginnen mit einer Querschnittsregression zur Bestimmung der...

In 1996 Austria introduced a tax for the layoff of older workers, which was tightened in 2000. The regulation requires employers to pay a tax of up to 170 percent of the gross monthly income when they give notice to employees aged 50 or more. We use data from Austrian social security records to...

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...

Conventional pension systems suffer from a design defect which makes them financially unsustainable, and a source of inefficiency for the economy as a whole. The paper outlines a second-best policy which includes a public pension system made up of two parallel schemes, a Bismarckian one allowing...