The ageing of the population jeopardises the sustainability of public finances in the Netherlands. The doubling of the ratio between the number of retirees and the number of workers destroys the balance between future public expenditure and tax revenues. Read also the accompanying <a href="http://www.cpb.nl/node/13346">press...</a>

Ageing will have an impact on both savings and investment, potentially leading to substantial international capital flows. This CPB Document provides a comprehensive overview, by considering various questions. What are the differences in the demographic process of ageing across countries? Does...

Progressive income taxes moderate wage demands by trade unions and thereby reduce unemployment, but also they reduce incentives to acquire skills and lower productivity of workers. The optimal response of the government to this dilemma is to choose a system of progressive taxes and to (partly)...

The literature on the equity premium vigorously debates how to measure the premium, what is its size and what determines its variation. This study provides a quantitative survey of the literature through a meta-analysis. We identify how the size of the equity premium depends on the way it is...

Growing pension savings lead to deeper capital markets. This can have a positive effect on economic growth by allowing firms that are more dependent on external finance to grow faster. We study this effect using data on 69 industrial sectors in 34 OECD countries for the period 2001-2010...