Successive reforms enacted since the 1990s have dramatically changed Europe's pensions landscape. This paper tries to assess the impact of recent reforms on the ability of systems to alleviate poverty and maintain living standards, using estimates of pension wealth for a number of hypothetical...

We suggest a political economy explanation for the stylized fact that intragenerationally more redistributive social security systems are smaller. Our key insight is that linking benefits to past earnings (less redistributiveness) reduces the efficiency cost of social security (due to endogenous...

In this paper, I estimate the fiscal impact of immigrants on the German pension insurance (PI) and unemployment insurance (UI) systems when return migration is an endogenous choice. For this purpose, I develop a dynamic stochastic model of joint return migration and saving decisions that...

This paper examines a static voting model for public pensions. The key premise is that families can internalize the cost and benefits of pay-as-you-go programs. A family realizes a net gain if its members collectively receive more in benefits in the current period than they pay in payroll taxes....

This paper examines the impact of old-age pension systems and other social transfer programmes on the retirement decision of older males in OECD countries. For each of the 55-59, 60-64 and 65+ age groups, a new panel dataset (22 OECD countries over 1969-1999 or shorter periods in some cases) of...

It is argued that a PAYGO system may have useful allocative functions in that it serves as an insurance against not having children and as an enforcement device for 'rotten kids' who are unwilling to pay their parents a pension. It is true that the system has a moral hazard effect in terms of...

Successive reforms enacted since the 1990s have dramatically changed Europe’s pensions landscape. This paper tries to assess the impact of recent reforms on the ability of systems to alleviate poverty and maintain living standards, using estimates of pension wealth for a number of hypothetical...

The pension systems of Middle Eastern and the North African Arab Countries are facing several threats that will not only endanger their old-age benefit schemes in the foreseeable future, but will also deepen social conflicts. This article examines four groups of factors that reinforce one...

Pension systems have wide-ranging and important effects. They influence the living standards of older people and hence the welfare of both older people and their children. They can also affect national economic performance through potential effects on the labor supply and saving. The design of...

Since the 1990s reforms have changed substantially both the nature of state pension provision and the level of generosity. This article tries to assess the impact of these changes using estimates of pension wealth for a number of hypothetical cases. By focusing on all prospective pension...