Aging creates financial troubles for PAYG pension systems, since the share of retirees to workers increases. An often advocated policy response is to increase retirement age. Ironically, however, the political support for this policy may actually be hindered by population aging. Using Swiss...

Prefunding of pension commitments in OECD economies is increasingly seen as a central strategy to cope with the aging of their populations. This paper argues that investments in emerging markets can help at the margin but are unable to solve the demographic problem. While these investments bring...

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...

Public pay-as-you-go pensions still form the dominant pillar of old-age provision in Germany. This is in marked contrast to the situation in Anglo-Saxon countries. It has advantages if labour markets are strong, e.g., following a quick recovery from the Great Recession. It has disadvantages, as...

The Croatian system of old-age provision comprises a traditional public pay-as-you-go scheme and a mandatory funded scheme ("second pillar") that will provide increasing amounts of supplementary pensions to those entering retirement in the future. Due to the continuing economic crisis, the...

The gains in life expectancy are expected to double the dependency ratio and increase population by 10% in Switzerland until 2050. To quantify the effects on pensions, taxes and social contributions, we use an overlapping generations model with five margins of labor supply: labor market...

This paper analyzes the impact of demographic aging on capital accumulation and welfare in economies with unfunded pensions. Using a two-period overlapping generation model with potentially endogenous retirement decisions, it shows that both the type of aging, i.e. declining fertility or...

In this paper we address the question how the generosity of the benefit rule of the German public pension system has changed during the past three decades and how this development can be explained by demographic changes. Firstly, we illustrate the political risk of benefit rule changes for...

Based on explicit present value calculations, the paper criticizes the view that the PAYGO system wastes economic resources. In present value terms, there is nothi ng to be gained from a transition to a funded system even though the latter offers a permanently higher rate of return. The sum of...

We find that segments of society who have shorter life expectancy can expect a lower retirement income and lifetime utility due to the longevity of other groups participating in the same pension scheme. Linking retirement age to average life expectancy magnifies the negative effect on the...