How much retirement income is needed in order to maintain one's living standard at old age? As it is difficult to find a firm basis for an empirical treatment of this question, we employ a novel approach to assessing an adequate replacement rate vis- a-vis income in the pre-retirement period. We subject indications regarding satisfaction with current income as collected in the German Socio-Economic ...
Mit dem demografischen Wandel sind ein Zugewinn an gesunden Lebensjahren und die Hoffnung verbunden, dass die nach Erreichen der Regelaltersgrenze frei werdende Zeit im Sinne eines aktiven Alterns für bürgerschaftliches Engagement oder weitere Erwerbstätigkeit genutzt werden kann. Bislang macht der Anteil der Erwerbspersonen nach Erreichen der Regelaltersgrenze an allen Älteren lediglich rund 5 % aus. ...
Generous income support programs as provided by European welfare states have often been blamed to reduce work incentives for the lowskilled and to increase durations of unemployment. Standard studies measure work incentives based on annual income concepts. This paper analyzes work incentives inherent in the German tax-benefit system when extending the time horizon to three years (long-term). Participation ...
We demonstrate that interpersonal comparisons lead to "keeping up with the Joneses"-behavior. Using annual household data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we estimate the causal effect of changes in reference consumption, defined as the consumption level of all households who are perceived to be richer, on household savings and consumption. When controlling for own income, an increase in reference ...
This paper proposes a dynamic life cycle model of health risks, employment, early retirement, and wealth accumulation in order to analyze the health-related risks of consumption and old age poverty. In particular, the model includes a health process, the interaction between health and employment risks, and an explicit modeling of the German public insurance schemes. I rely on a dynamic programming ...
This thesis comprises four chapters and investigates the relationship between individuals' education, health risks, and economic outcomes in Germany. The main contributions to the economic literature are twofold: i) Robust evidence for the causal effect of education on health risks is provided and ii) the implications of health risks for individuals' economic outcomes are quantified from a life-cycle ...
Die Zahl der Zugänge in die Erwerbsminderungsrente ist nach Angaben der Deutschen Rentenversicherung seit den 90er Jahren stark gesunken. In den Jahren 2005 bis 2010 erfolgte ein leichter Wiederanstieg. Seit 2001 haben sich auch die Zahlbeträge bei den Zugängen zur Erwerbsminderungsrente verringert. Damit ist die materielle Absicherung bei Erwerbsminderung wieder in den Blickpunkt der sozialpolitischen ...
