We consider three transfer models with a representative individual who discounts the utility of the merit good with respect to the standard one's. In each model, a paternalistic government taxes the consumer and transfers him additional merit goods in return. The private purchase of the merit...

Whether social transfers should be targeted or universal is an unsolved debate that is particularly relevant for the implementation of social protection schemes in developing countries. While the limited availability of public resources encourages targeting, the difficulty in identifying the...

This paper analyzes the impact of a reduction in women's labor supply through retirement on their informal care provision. Using SOEP data from the years 2001- 2016 the analysis addresses fundamental endogeneity problems by applying a fuzzy regression discontinuity design. We exploit early...

Paul Samuelson made a series of important contributions to population theory for humans and other species, evolutionary theory, and the theory of age structured life cycles in economic equilibrium and growth. The work is highly abstract but much of it was intended to illuminate issues of...

This paper analyzes behavioral responses to a reform in the German public pension system that allowed individuals with a long contribution history to retire without deductions before reaching the regular retirement age. Following the 2014 reform, individuals with 45 contribution years could...

Many countries have reduced the generosity of disability benefits while making them more activating - yet few studies have examined how employment rates have subsequently changed. We present estimates of how the employment rates of older workers with poor health in 13 high-income countries...

This paper provides a clear and transparent setting to study the effect of additional pension benefits on women's retirement decision. Using administrative pension insurance records from Germany, I examine the impact of a pension subsidy program to low pay workers, implemented in 1992. The...

Aging creates financial troubles for PAYG pension systems, since the share of retirees to workers increases. An often advocated policy response is to increase retirement age. Ironically, however, the political support for this policy may actually be hindered by population aging. Using Swiss...

We set up an overlapping generations model with endogenous fertility to study pensions policies in an ageing economy. We show that an increasing life expectancy may not be detrimental for the economy or the pension system itself. On the other hand, conventional policy measures, such as...

We evaluate the impact on youth crime of a welfare reform that tightened activation requirements for social assistance clients. The evaluation strategy exploits administrative individual data in combination with geographically differentiated implementation of the reform. We find that the reform...