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The Joint Distribution of Net Worth and Pension Wealth in Germany

The research on wealth inequality has generally focused on real and financial assets, while giving little attention to pension wealth: the present value of future pension entitlements from public and company pension schemes. This is surprising given the important role pension plans play in guaranteeing material security and well‐being for a majority of the population, and suggests that they should ...

Parental Background Matters: Intergenerational Mobility and Assimilation of Italian Immigrants in Germany

We investigate the hypothesis of failed integration and low social mobility of immigrants. An intergenerational assimilation model is tested empirically on household survey data and validated against registry data provided by the Italian Embassy in Germany. Although we confirm substantial disparities between educational achievements of immigrants and natives, we find that the children of Italian immigrants ...

Effectiveness of Early Retirement Disincentives: Individual Welfare, Distributional and Fiscal Implications

In aging societies, information on how to reform pension systems is essential to policy makers. This study scrutinizes effects of early retirement disincentives on retirement behavior, individual welfare, pensions and public budget. We employ administrative pension data and a detailed model of the German tax and social security system to estimate a structural dynamic retirement model. We find that ...

Fiscal Equalization and Tax Enforcement

In many countries organized as federations, fiscal equalization schemes have been implemented to mitigate vertical or horizontal imbalances. Such schemes usually imply that the member states of the federation can only partly internalize (marginal) tax revenue before redistribution. Aside from the internalized marginal revenue, referred to as the marginal tax-back rate, the remainder is redistributed. ...

Lifetime Earnings Inequality in Germany

We employ German social security records to investigate intragenerational lifetime earnings inequality and mobility of yearly earnings for 35 cohorts, starting with the birth year 1935. Our main result is a striking secular rise of intragenerational inequality in lifetime earnings: West German men born in the early 1960s are likely to experience about 85% more lifetime inequality than their fathers. ...

Die Ungleichheit von Lebenserwerbseinkommen

Erbschaft und Eigenleistung im Vermögen der Deutschen: eine Verteilungsanalyse

Wir gehen der Frage nach, ob die gegenwärtige Vermögensungleichheit in Deutschland auf eine Dominanz von Erbschaften im oberen Bereich der Verteilung zurückzuführen ist. Auf Basis von Daten der Deutschen Bundesbank zeigt sich, dass die Vermögen der Deutschen zu etwa zwei Dritteln auf Eigenleistung und zu etwa einem Drittel auf Erbschaft zurückgehen. Diese Proportion verändert sich entlang der Vermögensverteilung ...

Tragen ältere Menschen ein erhöhtes Armutsrisiko? Eine Dekompositions- und Mobilitätsanalyse relativer Einkommensarmut für das wiedervereinigte Deutschland

Die Rolle von Abschlägen für eine finanzielle Stabilisierung der Rentenversicherung

Mit dem bevorstehenden Renteneintritt von ca. 12 Millionen Babyboomern steht die finanzielle Stabilisierung der gesetzlichen Alterssicherung im Fokus. Vergangene Reformen können dabei als Grundlage dienen und Anhalts-punkte liefern, wie Abschläge, eine Erhöhung des Renteneintrittsalters oder Rentenkürzungen auf individuelle Renten und die finanzielle Stabilität der gesetzlichen Rentenversicherung (RV) ...

Effectiveness of Early Retirement Disincentives: Individual Welfare, Distributional and Fiscal Implications

In aging societies, information on how to reform pension systems is essential to policy makers. This study scrutinizes effects of early retirement disincentives on retirement behavior, individual welfare, pensions and public budget. We employ administrative pension data and a detailed model of the German tax and social security system to estimate a structural dynamic retirement model. We find that ...