How can retirement savings be increased? We explore a unique policy change in the context of the German pension system to study this question. As of 2004, the German pension authority started to send out annual letters providing detailed and comprehensible information about the pension system...

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...

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...

Die Europäische Zentralbank hat erstmals in der europäischen Geschichte den Leitzins auf null Prozent gesenkt. Diese überraschende Entscheidung wurde am 10.03.2016 in den Medien verbreitet. Der Report wurde verfasst vor dem Hintergrund der aktuellen Diskussion um die Niedrigzinsphase und den...

The theme of this dissertation is to investigate how financial risks can be allocated in a multi-agent and multi-period setting under the economic principle of “Pareto efficiency and financial fairness” (PEFF). The dissertation is a combination of theory and practice and consists of three...

The paper motivates and describes the tax treatment of German retirement benefits and pensions after the 2005 reform initiated by the German Federal Constitutional Court. The main question is whether this reform has produced a "level playing field" among the many instruments generating...

This article explores how German pension and retirement policy could be made more sustainable, focusing on selected current options for action rather than attempting to provide a comprehensive overview. Before turning to specific problems and perspectives, the article first discusses key...

This article examines recent pension reforms in OECD countries. All countries are facing the challenge of designing both financially and socially sustainable pension policies in a context of weak economic growth, low financial returns and ageing populations. In some cases, countries have been...

The paper analyzes the welfare consequences of insuring mortality risk by means of standard, fully funded Social Security pensions when individuals wish to make transfers to their heirs. In the presence of uninsured mortality risk, within-family transfers depend on realized lifespan. While...