There is an increasing interest among social scientists in merging survey data with administrative records from social security institutions. Record linkage represents one way to combine different sources using a unique identifier such as the Social Security number. The informed consent of the...

This paper provides an empirical analysis of what determines access to occupational pensions as perceived by workers. We investigate this issue in Germany, where workers have the legal right to an occupational pension since 2001, but many might lack the incentive or the ability to gather and...

We use the German re-unification as a natural experiment to understand drivers of financial literacy accumulation. With the transformation from a planned to a market-based economy in 1990, the incentives to invest in financial literacy were changed exogenously for East Germans and remained the...

In order to encourage people to take out voluntary private pensions to supplement decreasing statutory provisions Germany introduced the so-called Riester pensions. The complex design of the new product might have created entry barriers into the market helping to explain the slow adaption path...

The Riester pensions in Germany provide helpful evidence to better understand the determinants of and the barriers to the demand for old-age provision products. The paper argues that families are of key importance in the decision making process to buy such a private pension. Families do not only...

We use the German reunification as a natural experiment to understand drivers of financial literacy accumulation. With the transformation from a planned to a market-based economy in 1990, the incentives to invest in financial literacy were changed exogenously for East Germans and remained the...

In order to encourage people to take out voluntary private pensions to supplement decreasing statutory provisions Germany introduced the so-called Riester pensions. The complex design of the new product might have created entry barriers into the market helping to explain the slow adaption path...

Over the past years, the financial situation and the retirement prospects of the so-called babyboomers (people born during the demographic Post-World War II baby-boom) have become source of public concern and has attracted a great deal of attention in the US. In Germany, on the contrary, the...