This paper studies the impact of income inequality on trust from a theoretical and an empirical perspective. The model is built on the assumption that trust (defined as expected trustworthiness) is influenced by individual perceptions of inequality. These perceptions might have a social and a...

A growing economic literature stresses the importance of relative comparisons, e.g., for savings and consumption or happiness. In this literature it is usually assumed that reference standards against which people compare themselves are exogenously given. In contrast findings from social...

In this paper we will study the interaction of inequality and growth when people are assumed to care about their relative standing. We show that an increase in a societies' concern for relative standing aggravates a negative impact of inequality on growth if two conditions are fulfilled:...

This study examines the role of revaluation and adjustment factors in pension systems. The first part sheds light on the determination of revaluation and adjustment factors according to the General Social Security Act (Allgemeines Sozialversicherungsgesetz — ASVG) and how these factors have...

This study discusses important elements of Austria's recently harmonized statutory pension system. In particular, the author investigates in how far the new system responds to the twofold demographic challenge of declining birth rates and increasing life expectancy and what this means in terms...

In this paper I study the relation between real wage rigidity (RWR) and nominal price and wage rigidity. I show that in a standard DSGE model RWR is mainly affected by the interaction of the two nominal rigidities and not by other structural parameters. The degree of RWR is, however,...

In this paper we present an extension of the Taylor model with staggered wages in which wage-setting is also influenced by reference norms (i.e. by benchmark wages). We show that reference norms can considerably increase the persistence of inflation and the extent of real wage rigidity but that...