We present quasi-experimental evidence on the employment effects of an unprecedented large increase in the early retirement age (ERA). Raising the ERA has the potential to extend contribution periods and to reduce the number of pension beneficiaries at the same time, if employment exits are...

The broadly used pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension system is intrinsically wrong. The essence of the problem is that the PAYG system distributes the yield of raising children, i.e., of human capital investment (which is essentially the pension contribution), in such a way that it disregards the...

The ecological tax reform that Germany implemented between 1999 and 2003 increased energy tax rates-especially on gasoline and diesel. Today, the ecological tax hikes yield an annual revenue of around 20 billion euros or 0.6 percent of GDP. The money is used to finance a higher federal grant to...