Karl Marx observed long ago that all economic struggles invite moral struggles, or masquerade as such. The reverse may be true as well: deep moral-political conflicts may be waged through the manipulation of economic resources. Using the recent financial and Eurozone crises as empirical...

In this essay, we investigate the dominant position of economics within the network of the social sciences in the United States. We begin by documenting the relative insularity of economics, using bibliometric data. Next we analyze the tight management of the field from the top down, which gives...

If individuals are unable or unwilling to borrow, a higher than desired second pillar pension capital may induce people to retire earlier than they would have in the absence of such a scheme. Individuals thus leave the workforce as soon as the retirement income is deemed sufficient and the...

We use a unique dataset on individual retirement decisions in Swiss pension funds to analyze the choice between an annuity and a lump sum at retirement. Our analysis suggests the existence of an ?acquiescence bias?, meaning that a majority of retirees chooses the standard option offered by the...

This paper analyzes a recent ballot in which two virtually identical popular initiatives, both demanding a decrease in the legal age of retirement in Switzerland, led to differences in approval rates of nearly seven percentage points. Based on this unique natural experiment, the existence of...

This paper presents new evidence on how the annuitization decision is affected by changes in the annuity's value. We take advantage of an unprecendented change in policy, which in 2004 moderated the super-mandatory Swiss occupational pension scheme: The 20 percent reduction in the rate at which...

Most industrialized countries provide a subsistence level consumption floor in old age, usually in the form of means-tested benefits or income supplements. The availability of such means-tested payments creates an incentive to optimally cash out (occupational) pension wealth for low and middle...

Disabled insurance (DI) beneficiaries lose benefits if labor incomes exceed certain thresholds (so called cash-cliffs ). The high implicit taxation of employment income is considered one of the prime reasons for the low outflow from the disability insurance. This paper presents the results of...