This paper examines the degree of substitution between public pension wealth and private saving by studying Poland's 1999 pension reform. The analysis identifies the effect of pension wealth on private saving using cohort-by-time variation in pension wealth induced by the reform. The estimates,...

We study the impact of welfare payments in Ecuador on the probability that women and men work, and on whether they are employed in the formal or informal sectors. Our analysis is based on two distinct identification strategies and two separate sources of data spanning more than 10 years. We find...

Unsustainability of pension systems particularly in developed economies looms large on the horizon due to increasing life expectancy and continuous drop in fertility. In spite of a broad awareness of the issues, there is no consensus on appropriate remedy and little action. In this paper, I...

The paper evaluates the distributional effects on earnings and income of requiring young welfare recipients to fulfill conditions related to work and activation. It exploits within-social insurance office variation in policy arising from a geographically staggered reform in Norway. The reform...

The old-age security motive for fertility postulates that people's needs for old-age support raise the demand for children. We test this widespread idea using the extension of social pensions in Namibia during the nineties. The reform eliminated inequalities in pension coverage and benefit...

The Family Assistance Tax Credits provide income-tested (and in some cases work-tested) financial assistance for families with financially dependent children who are living at home. This paper describes the evolution and operation of the Family Assistance programmes. This description clarifies...

This paper is a stock take of the financial incentives to work present in New Zealand's social assistance system. The purpose of this paper is to provide a basis for research on problems facing the social assistance system and dilemmas that would be likely to arise when considering potential...

In this paper we explore the question of the sustainability of the intergenerational contract that is represented by the current structure of social welfare. We argue that sustainability and time consistency of social welfare policies could be improved by more explicit recognition of the social...

Bis 2025 sollen die Ostrenten schrittweise auf das Westniveau angehoben werden. Der Bundestag hat dafür am 1. Juni 2017 das Rentenüberleitungs-Abschlussgesetz beschlossen, das eine Anhebung der Ostrenten ab Juli 2018 in sieben Schritten bis 2024 auf das Westniveau vorsieht. Die Angleichung...

Mit einer Grundrente soll die Lebensleistung bedürftiger Ruheständler gewürdigt werden. Würde eine Rentenaufstockung ohne Bedürftigkeitsprüfung erfolgen, drohen die Hilfen in vier von fünf Fällen fehladressiert zu werden. Denn selbst wenn der individuelle gesetzliche Rentenanspruch...