Over the next four decades, increasing old-age dependency ratios exert an enormous upward pressure on welfare spending in most developed countries. As this is mainly due to existing unfunded public pension schemes, many countries have embarked on far-reaching reforms in this area, strengthening...

This paper is concerned with establishing the data base that is necessary to analyse the double bürden argument which has been used to reject a sweeping reform of the German old-age pension System. We show that this argument does not hold if the existing pay-as-you-go system were to be replaced...

This paper analyzes pension reforms in Europe and their determinants. As pension reforms are intrinsically difficult to define and pinpoint, we introduce an alternative measure of pension reforms by comparing long-term forecasts of pension expenditures for seventeen European countries. The...

The paper provides a framework for the conceptualization, definition and estimation of legacy costs that need to be addressed in a reform that transforms an unfunded defined contribution (NDB) scheme into a notional (or non-financial) defined contribution (NDC) scheme. As the new contribution...

This paper discusses two topics which are at the very center of the ongoing political debate on public pension reform. First, we deal with the puzzle that there is a public pension system at all from a purely neoclassical point of view. Second, we address the issue which is considered the...

In a simple cohort model we carry out a projection based on current per capita age profiles of labour income and consumption and combine them with Hungary's expected future age composition. We use 2012 Hungarian data. Due to a shrinking and ageing population this exercise predicts a growing gap...

Angesichts der anhaltend niedrigen Geburtenraten und der bedrohten langfristigen Stabilität der Gesetzlichen Rentenversicherung kommt in Deutschland immer von neuem die Diskussion auf, ob eine erhöhte Zuwanderung die rettende Rolle spielen kann, die uns vor schmerzhaften Einschnitten in das...

Die Nachwirkungen der Wirtschaftskrise und die Lasten der Konjunkturprogramme werden den Bund und die Länder bereits in dieser Legislaturperiode zu umfangreichen Konsolidierungsmaßnahmen zwingen, um das durch die Schuldenbremse gesteckte Ziel eines strukturell ausgeglichenen Haushalts zu...