This book is unique as it presents an academic and a practical aspect on managing pension funds to clarify the global debate on social security. The authors establish the basic choices in designating any system to help policy makers develop the system that achieves their many objectives

The German pension system was the first formal pension system in the world, designed by Bismarck nearly 120 years ago. It has been very successful in providing high and reliable pension levels at reasonable contribution rates. While the generosity of the German pension system is considered a...

Notional defined contribution (NDC) systems have strongly been being debated in the worldwide pension literature in the past years. This paper deals with the feasibility of such NDC systems. The focus is on the German case, where the recent 2004 pension reform introduced a so-called...

Whether pension reforms lead to an improvement in macroeconomic performance is a controversial question. Some countries, which have implemented reforms, claim better economic performance while in others a positive result has yet to be seen. This paper explores two aspects of this issue further:...

The paper analyses the impact of demographic developments on the German pension system until the year 2060. The projections are simulated for a range of assumptions on the latest demographic trends and on the labour market and comprise the latest pension legislation. As a central innovation we...

Demographic change inevitably shifts the balance between contributors and recipients in the pension system. Moreover, in the German pension system benefit levels are closely linked to the current state of economic prosperity. Therefore, in the coming decades stabilisation of old-age security...