This paper investigates the effects of survivor benefits (SB) on the labour supply of widows. Using richadministrative data on the Dutch population and a reform that considerably restricted eligibility to SB, weidentify the causal effect of SB on labour supply. Using a regression discontinuity design strategy based onthe cohort-based implementation of the reform, we show that labour income after spousal ...
We estimate a dynamic structural model of labor supply, retirement, and informal caregiving to study short and long-term costs of informal caregiving in Germany. Incorporating labor market frictions and the German tax and benefit system, we find that in the absence of Germany’s public long-term insurance scheme, informal elderly care has adverse and persistent effects on labor market outcomes and, ...
Business cycle models often abstract from persistent household heterogeneity, despite its potentially significant implications for macroeconomic fluctuations and policy. We show empirically that the likelihood of being persistently financially constrained decreases with cognitive skills and increases with overconfidence thereon. Guided by this and other micro evidence, we add persistent heterogeneity ...
Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents to climate change. Climate and sustainability-linked bonds can provide funding to African governments and corporations for projects that help to mitigate climate change, combat biodiversity loss, and foster sustainable development. However, less than 0.3% of the global environmental, social, governance (ESG) bond issuance volume is devoted to projects ...
In the coming years, the pension system in Germany will face financial challenges. The insurance within pension system mustalso be strengthened, especially given that the risk of old-age poverty has increased over the years. An effective basic pension thatguarantees a minimum amount and is anchored in the pension system would be an important step in reducing poverty in old age. An effectivebasic pension ...