Comparative welfare state research has argued for some time that it makes a difference in regards to the specific welfare state design whether Social Democrats or Christian Democrats are in government. The theory is based on the fact that historically the social policy aims of Social Democrats...

The welfare state has long been under debate. Besides various theoretical discussions, it has often been empirically investigated regarding its effects on inequality and economic growth. With the advent of the scientific field of happiness research, scholars began to discuss the welfare state's...

In Germany, there is an ongoing debate about how to increase the efficiency of the social security system and especially its financing. The aim of this paper is to simulate different financing systems for Germany. The introduction of a Liberal British or the Southern Greek financing system...

This paper integrates into public economics a biologically founded, stochastic process of individual ageing. The novel approach enables us to quantitatively characterize the optimal joint design of health and retirement policy behind the veil of ignorance for today and in response to future...