This paper reviews and summarizes the literature that has concentrated on budget consolidations and their fiscal and economic effects. The issue of fiscal adjustments has again gained importance due to the recent economic crisis and the resulting fiscal imbalances. The existing literature shows...

This volume was prepared by Benedikt Siegler while working at the Center for the Economics of Education of the Ifo Institute. It was completed in June 2014 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich (LMU) in November 2014. The thesis includes...

Money is a scarce resource for most people. For that reason, the decision whether to spend more today and less in the future or vice versa is a recurrent question to many of us. Pension systems provide incentives for saving for future consumption and mortgage markets allow us to increase...