Pension economics has traditionally guided pension policy with the help of formal models based on individuals who think in a life cycle context with perfect foresight, full information, and in a time-consistent manner. This paper sheds light on selected aspects of pension economics when these...

Öffentliche Investitionen, etwa in die Infrastruktur, gehen seit vier Jahrzehnten zurück. Eine neue RWI-Studie zeigt für 13 OECD-Länder erstmals den negativen Zusammenhang dieser Entwicklung mit einer immer älter werdenden Bevölkerung. Da Senioren andere Zeitpräferenzen haben als...

Ongoing demographic change will lead to a relative scarcity of raw labor to the effect that output growth will be decreasing in the next decades, a secular stagnation. As physical capital will be relatively abundant, this decrease of output will be accompanied by reductions of asset returns. We...

Governments are responding to fiscal pressures associated with aging populations by increasing the eligibility age for publicly-funded retirement benefits. However, recent studies show large resulting increases in the receipt of alternative payments, which raises concern that welfare savings are...

The ongoing demographic changes in Germany pose serious consequences and challanges for society. One of these challenges is located in the economy. Most companies are in a global competition. In oder to survive they need to keep improving their products and services. Especially smal companies...

Population ageing is the 21st century's dominant demographic phenomenon. Declining fertility, increasing longevity, and the progression of large-sized cohorts to the older ages are causing elder shares to rise throughout the world. The phenomenon of population ageing, which is unprecedented in...

Die vorliegende Dissertation verwendet empirische Methoden zur Untersuchung von Problemen in den Bereichen Makroökonomie, internationaler Handel, Politische Ökonomie und Verhaltensökonomie. Kapitel 1 besteht aus einer Zusammenfassung der Literatur zur Frage, welche Faktoren die...

Governments are responding to fiscal pressures associated with aging populations by increasing the eligibility age for publicly-funded retirement benefits. However, recent studies show large resulting increases in the receipt of alternative payments, which raises concern that welfare savings are...

Welfare services are an important part of the Nordic welfare states both financially and for welfare state redistribution. Baumol's cost disease, Wagner's law, and population ageing are often said to bring challenges for the future provision of welfare services. While none of the three poses an...

To assess the likely effects of population ageing on the outcomes of direct democracy, we analyze the effect of age on voting decisions in public referenda. To this end, we provide the first quantitative review of the literature and a case study of the Stuttgart 21 referendum on one of the...

Public investment, for instance in infrastructure, has been constantly decreasing for four decades. New research by RWI for 13 OECD-countries shows: this development significantly correlates with population aging. Senior citizens do not value future payoffs of infrastructure projects and other...

Population decline is now a reality for most countries in the EU. Many regions are experiencing decline, including the Netherlands. Population decline is a complex issue with many social and economic implications. At the same time, population change strengthens the effect of demographic ageing....

Demographic change inevitably shifts the balance between contributors and recipients in the pension system. Moreover, in the German pension system benefit levels are closely linked to the current state of economic prosperity. Therefore, in the coming decades stabilisation of old-age security...