In view of rising wage and income inequality, the introduction of a legal minimum wage has recently become an important policy issue in Germany. We analyze the distributional effects of a nationwide legal minimum wage of 7.50 € per hour on the basis of a microsimulation model which accounts...

Jobs offer different wages and different non-monetary working conditions. This paper investigates how the demand for non-monetary aspects evolves over changing wealth levels. Wages do not perfectly compensate individuals for differential utility of jobs in a labour market with informational...

This paper proposes a test for the existence and degree of contagious presenteeism and negative externalities in sickness insurance schemes. First, we theoretically decompose moral hazard into shirking and contagious presenteeism behavior and derive testable conditions. Then, we implement the...

In view of rising wage inequality and increasing poverty, the introduction of a legal minimum wage has recently become an important policy issue in Germany. We analyze the distributional effects of the introduction of a nationwide legal minimum wage of € 7.5 per hour on the basis of a...

In this paper we identify a number of objectionable features of the German retirement benefit formula. We show that groups of insureds with higher than average life expectancy, in particular high-income groups, are subsidized by the rest of the membership because the formula neglects differences...

The paper presents a model where public pensions are determined by majority voting. Voters differ by age and income. Moreover, life expectancy increases with income. Depending on the strength of the link between contributions and benefits, and the relationship between income and life expectancy,...

Mit Daten des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels für das Jahr 2002 wird gezeigt, dass die jüngere Generationmit ihrer finanziellen Alterssicherung deutlich unzufriedener ist als die ältere. Dieser Effekt ist unabhängig von der ökonomischen Situation der Befragten, weist also darauf hin, dass es...

Options for reforming unfunded public pension schemes that are now being discussed all share the feature that the burden induced by demographic change would be shifted towards presently living and away from unborn generations. Existing models of the political economy of pension reform can not...

Eine unerwartet steigende Lebenserwartung führt bei privaten kapitalgedeckten Rentenversicherungsverträgen zu sinkenden Rentenzahlungen und/oder einer Belastung des Versicherungsunternehmens, das verschiedene Möglichkeiten hat, dieser Belastung zu entgegnen. Für Deutschland wird anhand der...

As one possible solution to the well-known financing crisis of unfunded social security systems, an increase in the retirement age is a popular option. To induce workers to retire later, it has been proposed to strengthen the link between retirement age and benefit level. The present paper is...