Can early childhood interventions compensate for innate deficits? In this paper, I study the forced right-hand writing of left-handed children (“switching”). While previous literature has found that, due to innate cognitive deficits, left-handers obtain less human capital and lower wages...

English Abstract: Pension economics has traditionally guided pension policy with the help of formal models based on individuals who think in a life cycle context with perfect foresight, full information and in a time-consistent manner. This paper sheds light on selected aspects of pension...

German Abstract: 15 Jahre nach der Einführung der Riester-Rente ziehen wir Bilanz und untersuchen, was die Riester-Rente bislang erreicht hat und welche Handlungsoptionen zur Verfügung stehen. Die Riester-Rente ist seit ihrer Einführung auf breite Resonanz gestoßen. So stehen auf der...

Ongoing demographic change will lead to a relative scarcity of raw labor to the effect that output growth will be decreasing in the next decades, a secular stagnation. As physical capital will be relatively abundant, this decrease of output will be accompanied by reductions of asset returns. We...

Educational attainment depends on parent's material and cultural resources. In many families, the grandparents may also provide resources that directly or indirectly support their children's educational careers. That is why we applied a "multigenerational view" and tested under what conditions...

The MEA-study deals with the future development of the so-called pension gap. Firstly, simulations are carried out under different assumptions on the example of the standard pensioner. Secondly, the MEA study examines the savings behavior of German households and the individual ways to close the...

German Abstract: Im Laufe des Jahres 2016 ist es zu einer neuerlichen Rentendiskussion gekommen, die insbesondere die intergenerative Aufteilung der Finanzierungslast des demographischen Wandels in Frage gestellt hat. Insbesondere wurde die Fixierung eines höheren Sicherungsziels als es derzeit...

This paper estimates the causal effect of reducing behavioral costs of participation in household waste recycling. We use panel data collected in three city districts in Cologne, Germany (n=1567), in one of which a curbside scheme replaced the traditional bring scheme between observations. Using...

We investigate the long-term effects of macroeconomic crises experienced during prime working age (20 to 50) on health outcomes later in life using data from eleven European countries. Experiencing a severe crisis in which GDP dropped by at least 1% significantly reduces health later in life....

Population aging in the United States poses challenges to societal institutions while simultaneously creating opportunities to build a more resilient, successful, and cohesive society. Work organization and labor-force participation are central to both the opportunities and challenges posed by...