The currently observed demographic change consists of two independent develop-ments that differ in structure and persistence: (1) A slow, monotonic and (presum-ably) permanent ageing effect caused by an increasing life expectancy; (2) a morerapidly changing, non-monotonic and less permanent...

In their recent paper, Boldrin and Montes (2005) analyze the "return on human capital investment" theory and show that if borrowing for education is not possible, then a combined public education and pension system that uses lump sum taxes and transfers can replicate the first-best decentralized...

The aim of this paper is to quantify the welfare effects of some currently discussed pension reform proposals in Germany. The analysis is based on an extended overlapping-generations model which accounts for intra-generational heterogeneity, rising life expectancy and declining fertility. Given...

We assume that individual voters differ not only according to age but also productivity. In the steady state, workers with wages in the intermediate range join the retired persons to form a majority and vote for a positive level of social security. When a shock decreases population growth,...

Demographic change has an impact on pay-as-you-go pension systems. To maintain their financial sustainability, reforms are necessary, but often lack public support. Based on representative survey data from Germany, we conduct a survey experiment which allows investigating whether salience of or...

Due to the accelerating demographic change of the population the reform of the existing pension systems constitutes one of the greatest political challenges in most European countries. A theoretical discussion of different pension reforms must incorporate not only the demographic aspect but also...