A key figure suited to measuring intergenerational imbalances in unfunded public pension schemes is given by the 'implicit tax rate' imposed on each generation's lifetime income. The implicit tax arises from the fact that, quite generally, pension benefits fall short of actuarial returns to...

A significant ageing trend can be observed in Europe and in other parts of the world. Fertility is decreasing and life expectancy increasing. The impact of migration is growing. The book deals with the implications for financial markets of these demographic trends. Leading economists and...

The impact of a stronger work requirement for welfare recipients in a workfare program is studied in an efficiency wage model where a representative firm chooses its level of monitoring activities. A stricter workfare policy raises employment and monitoring activities. It typically increases...

Building on a new data set which is combined from national micro-data bases, we highlight differences in the structure of migrants to four countries, viz. France, Germany, the UK and the US, which receive a substantial share of all immigrants to the OECD world. Looking at immigrants by source...

We consider lifetime health insurance contracts in which ageing provisions are used to smooth the premium profile. The stock of capital accumulated for each individual can be split into two parts: a premium insurance and an annuitised life insurance, where the latter would be transferable...

Slower growth of the labour force and an increase in old-age dependency will reduce the growth of aggregate output and output per capita in many developed countries. However, a major question is whether there is any systematic link between demographics and the productivity of those who will...

A broad strand in experimental economics has been devoted to testing the "Hayek hypothesis", which is commonly understood as the proposition that competitive markets conform to basic efficiency postulates. The precise content of this hypothesis, however, often remains fairly vague. We begin by...

The rapidly aging populations of many developed countries--most notably Japan and member countries of the European Union--present obvious problems for the public pension plans of these countries. Not only will there be disproportionately fewer workers making pension contributions than there are...

Structural unemployment, or persistently high levels of unemployment that do not follow the ups and downs of a typical business cycle, varies significantly across industrialized countries. In this CESifo volume, leading labor economists analyze the widely diverging patterns of long-term...

Measures of family policy are located in different branches of the law, mainly in tax law, social law and civil law governing alimony. In Germany, the bundle of relevant rules has evolved historically. There are thus numerous linkages between its single elements which are shaped deliberately...