Abstract Jobs, Jobs und abermals Jobs’ ist das politische Schlagwort in den Niederlanden. In diesem Artikel werden die Hintergründe des niederländischen “Beschäftigungswunders” erläutert und die zentrale Frage beantwortet, ob es möglich und erwünscht wäre, das “Poldermodell” in...

We develop a general equilibrium stochastic OLG model with heterogenous households. Households differ with respect to their productivity. Productivity depends stochastically on parents' unobservable investment in their child's human capital and an aggregate productivity shock. We introduce a...

This paper analyzes simultaneous voting on the wage tax rate and investment in public education with three overlapping generations and productivity differences inside each cohort. Wage tax revenue finances public education and social security benefits. The presence of productivity differences...

Using data from the first eleven waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel this study investigates the dynamic effects of health shocks on employment and economic wellbeing of older workers. A health shock trebles the probability of leaving the labor force and almost doubles the unemployment...

We analyze the interaction between risk sharing and capital accumulation in a stochastic OLG model with production. We give a complete characterization of interim Pareto optimality. Our characterization also subsumes equilibria with a PAYG social security system. In a competitive equilibrium...

Based on a model with imperfectly competitive labor and product markets the real consequences of labor market shocks for economies with either an earnings-related or flatrate unemployment compensation system are considered. A distinctive feature of the analysis is the comparison of both...

The presence of cross-sectionally correlated error terms invalidates much inferential theory of panel data models. Recently work by Pesaran (2006) has suggested a method which makes use of cross-sectional averages to provide valid inference for stationary panel regressions with multifactor error...

The paper investigates the consequences of outsourcing of labor intensive activities to low-wage economies. This trend challenges the two basic functions of the welfare state, redistribution and social insurance when private unemployment insurance markets are missing. The main results are: (i)...

In a model with ex-ante homogenous households, earnings risk and a general earnings function, we derive the optimal linear labor tax rate and optimal linear education subsidies. The optimal income tax trades off social insurance against incentives to work and to invest in human capital....

Building on the existing literature that examines the extent of redistribution in the Social Security system as a whole, this paper focuses more specifically on how Social Security affects the poor. This question is important because a Social Security program that reduces overall inequality by...