Analyzing a homogenous household setting with endogenous fertility and endogenous labor supply, we demonstrate that moving from joint taxation to individual taxation and adapting child benefits so as to keep fertility constant entails a Pareto improvement. The change is associated with an...

Die Frage, ob und in welchem Umfang volljährige Kinder ihre Eltern oder Eltern ihre Kinder finanziell unterstützen sollen, ist wieder Gegenstand der politischen Diskussion. Wie weit sollte die "Verantwortungsgemeinschaft Familie" gehen? Für Gerd Andres, Parlamentarischer Staatssekretär beim...

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...

There exists substantial variation across countries as to whether and how students are grouped in classes according to ability. Economic analyses stress that there is joint production of human capital in schools, where output increases with mean ability in the class. Ability tracking may...

We consider lifetime health insurance contracts in which ageing provisions are used to smooth the premium profile. The capital stock accumulated for each individual can be decomposed into two parts: a premium insurance and an annuitised life insurance, only the latter being transferable between...

The consequences of introducing or tightening time limits on receiving high unemployment benefits are studied in a shirking model. Stricter time limits have an ambiguous impact on the net wage, and changes of utility levels of employed workers and recipients of high unemployment benefits have...