High Wages - An instrument inducing workers to work more?

Wages and their effect on labour supply are not only an important subject for labour economists who aim at measuring substitution and income effects. Additionally, the government is interested in the impact of policy changes on the labour market and companies would like to know if it is possible to increase labour supply and especially productivity by increasing the wage rate. This paper introduces a dynamic version of the traditional model of labour supply and presents model extensions and the underlying behavioural assumptions arising from empirical findings, psychology and neuroscience. It evaluates findings and behavioural assumptions derived so far. None of the contributions investigated in this work is entirely free from criticism. The problem of analysing a comprehensive model of labour supply on the one hand, is the scarcity of suitable subjects to investigate and on the other hand, the individuality of each subject observed. With this work a critical analysis of existing research on labour supply decisions is provided. This shall contribute to motivate and ease future research in this area which has to take these problems into account.high wages; analysis; labour supply decision; labour supply model; intertemporal labour supply

Effectiveness of the public Riester subsidies - An empirical analysis using the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP)

While private pensions have long been an integral part of old age insurance in America, it is now also in Germany on the rise. To increase the attractiveness and acceptance of private pension provision in the population, saving incentives have been used. In Germany, a Riester saver expects a savings subsidy and a special expense deduction. In addition, all contributions to private retirement provision are taxed downstream. The incentive design is at the expense of the state budget, so the question of the efficiency of savings incentives, such as the Riester pension is an issue of central importance. Empirical studies that have addressed the effective-ness of savings incentives, have thereby limited solely to the effect on the savings rate. The results of these papers are very different. In this work the efficiency of the Riester-subsidy has a much wider interpretation. In particular, one should not limit the usefulness of such a fund-ing measure only on increasing the savings rate. As a fact can be established that an increase of signed Riester contracts is already a benefit of increased funding, depending on the kind of saving which had been substituted. An empirical analysis based on data from the Socio-Economic Panel shows that the objectives have already partly been achieved since many the likelihood of signing a Riester contract increases with the number of children. Additionally individuals with low income are increasingly signing Riester contracts.Riester; effectiveness; subsidies; analysis; Socio-Economic Panel; SOEP

High Wages - An instrument inducing workers to work more?

Wages and their effect on labour supply are not only an important subject for labour economists who aim at measuring substitution and income effects. Additionally, the government is interested in the impact of policy changes on the labour market and companies would like to know if it is possible to increase labour supply and especially productivity by increasing the wage rate. This paper introduces a dynamic version of the traditional model of labour supply and presents model extensions and the underlying behavioural assumptions arising from empirical findings, psychology and neuroscience. It evaluates findings and behavioural assumptions derived so far. None of the contributions investigated in this work is entirely free from criticism. The problem of analysing a comprehensive model of labour supply on the one hand, is the scarcity of suitable subjects to investigate and on the other hand, the individuality of each subject observed. With this work a critical analysis of existing research on labour supply decisions is provided. This shall contribute to motivate and ease future research in this area which has to take these problems into account

Co-payment as a solution to the moral hazard problem in the pharmaceutical market?

Within the debate about the rise of costs in the German health system, the argument has put forth that patients' excessive demand for benefits is caused by the existence of a moral hazard problem. One way of influencing an insured person's consumer behaviour is the introduction of several copayment models. The first task of this work is to examine the role of moral hazard in an insured person's consumer demand for drugs. Empirical evidence of this phenomenon is a central aspect of this task. Furthermore, the question if copayment is a suitable means of control to reduce the exorbitant demand for drugs will be answered. The focus here lies on the criteria effectiveness of control, reconcilabilty with the welfare state and effectiveness in general.Pharmaceuticals, Co-payment, Moral hazard, Health care system, Cost explosion

Finanzierungsmöglichkeiten für Assistenzsysteme im Alter

The article identifies current and future funding opportunities of technical assistance systems for the elderly people. State or government-sponsored measures were examined to determine the funding. Results of future health economic evaluations of may facilitate the application of technical nursing aids to the responsible care insurance fund

Finanzierungsmöglichkeiten für Assistenzsysteme im Alter

The article identifies current and future funding opportunities of technical assistance systems for the elderly people. State or government-sponsored measures were examined to determine the funding. Results of future health economic evaluations of may facilitate the application of technical nursing aids to the responsible care insurance fund

Health Care Reform 2007: Justice and Allocational Consequences

Discussions of health care reforms are always tightly connected with the question of ensuring equity in financing health care. This paper analyses the German health care reform 2007 and its effect on the equity of health care financing. To do this Rawls’ and Nozick’s perceptions of justice will be applied to develop benchmarks to classify new financing options introduced with the reform. These benchmarks are indicated through a differentiation between the two principles „fair compensation for performance“ and „equitable support based on need“ and the extent of income redistribution of the new financing modes. Overall, it can be concluded that the health care reforms have not reduced equity in health care financing neither if Rawls’ perception of justice is applied nor if the conception of justice held by Nozick is applied.Finanzierungsgerechtigkeit; Gesundheit; Rawls; Nozick; Gesundheitsreform; Wahlleistungen; Deutschland; Equity; Financing; Healthcare; Health care reform; Optional services; Germany

Befragungsgestützte Untersuchung zu Teilaspekten der Altersvorsorgeentscheidung von Privatpersonen in Deutschland

In Germany, private retirement provision is a topic of increasing importance. The ageing population in combination with unemployment, an increasing number of temporary work contracts, more individuals who work part-time or in jobs not subject to social insurance contributions, make it problematic to finance the pensions of the retired in a pay-as-you-go financed pension system. Besides, the number of individuals not able to acquire sufficient pension claims exceeding the needs-oriented basic pension is increasing. Several pension reforms have taken place in order to alleviate the pressure on the pay-as-you-go system. In 2001, a voluntarily funded part was introduced to close the pension gap which has slowly been rising due to a declining replacement rate in the statutory pension system. Individuals now have to decide if they start to provide for retirement privately, how much they are going to save and where to invest. Such decisions require a sound knowledge of the German pension system and general financial knowledge in order to be able to approximate retirement needs and to compare financial products. Based on the theory of saving and its behavioral refinements, a decision model has been developed in this thesis which describes each step from thinking about retirement to actually saving for retirement. Each of these steps has been investigated empirically in order to find out more about the hurdles individuals face on their way towards private retirement savings. Based on an instrumental variable estimation, it will be shown that providing information about retirement provision alone will not be sufficient to make people think about an appropriate retirement income, to induce people to make concrete retirement plans and to increase the number of individuals who translate their plans into action. Instead of providing general pension knowledge, offering concrete and targeted information at the time it is needed might be a more successful strategy. These idea, results and conclusions stem from Oehler and Wilhelm-Oehler 2009a, 2011 who analyze the data from „Altersvorsorge macht Schule” („retirement planning goes school”). They recommend a practice-oriented, case-based financial education as well as a „meta education” to improve the „meta literacy” as shown by Oehler (2004, 2009a, 2011, 2012a, 2012d-e, 2013a-b). „Meta literacy” in this sense means that it is more important to know methods or people who can solve the problem when it appears, than acquiring all knowledge themselves being prepared to solve all possible problems (Oehler/Wilhelm-Oehler 2009, 2011; Oehler 2011, 2012a, 2012d-e, 2013a-b). This strategy may also be successful to solve the problem of time constraints which many individuals stated to be the main reason why they would not participate in a retirement seminar. Furthermore, the confidence in one’s own knowledge seems to be more important than actual knowledge which requires measures to increase consumer confidence. Such a measure could be, for example, a hypothetical situation in which seminar participants have to evaluate the offer they received from a financial advisor (Oehler 2004, 2005b, 2006, 2011, 2012a, 2012d-e, 2013a-b). According to the literature findings in the last five decades it is known that individuals fall back to heuristics in order to simplify decision. This behavior has also been observed in this work. Even though they own a pension product, they stated they did not try to figure out how much retirement wealth would be necessary to live an adequate retirement life. Hence, they must have followed some kind of decision rule to decide, among others, about the amount they save. Using heuristics was more prevalent among individuals owning a “Riester Pension” than among individuals owning a company pension. Since individuals with a company pension often receive information about the pension plan through the employer or via employer sponsored retirement seminars, such seminars seem likely to have the potential of increasing the number of individuals who engage in retirement planning before starting to save. The second one is that individuals who admit that they tend to procrastinate on financial decisions are more likely to join a retirement seminar than individuals who indicate that they would rather not procrastinate. Making people aware of the widespread problem of procrastinating retirement savings might increase the number of individuals who realize that they have procrastinated retirement planning and henceforth increase the number of individuals participating in retirement seminars.In Deutschland ist die private Altersvorsorge ein immer wichtiger werdendes Thema. Die Alterung der Gesellschaft in Zusammenhang mit Arbeitslosigkeit und befristeten Arbeitsverhältnissen sowie eine wachsende Anzahl an Arbeitnehmern in Teilzeitbeschäftigung oder nicht sozialversicherungspflichtigen Beschäftigungsverhältnissen erschweren es, die lebensstandardsichernden Renten der Rentner in einem umlagefinanzierten Rentensystem weiter aufrecht zu erhalten. Des Weiteren führt diese Art von Arbeit und die damit verbundenen unterbrochenen Erwerbsverläufe dazu, dass in Zukunft die Zahl der Menschen, die nicht in der Lage sein werden genügend Rentenansprüche zu erwerben, um später eine Rente über der Grundrente zu erhalten, steigen wird. In den letzten Jahren hat es einige Rentenreformen gegeben, die die Belastungen gerecht zwischen den Generationen verteilen sollten. Im Jahre 2001 wurde eine zusätzliche freiwillige private Altersvorsorge eingeführt, welche dazu gedacht ist, die Rentenlücke, welche durch das Absenken des Rentenniveaus entsteht, zu schließen. Individuen müssen sich nun selbst entscheiden, ob sie sparen, wie viel sie sparen und wie sie ihr Geld investieren. Solche Entscheidungen setzten zum einen gute Kenntnisse des deutschen Rentensystems und zum anderen finanzielles Grundwissen voraus. Auf der Grundlage der Theorie des Sparens und ihrer verhaltenswissenschaftlichen Verfeinerungen wird in dieser Arbeit ein Entscheidungsmodell entwickelt, welches die einzelnen Schritte zwischen den ersten Überlegungen zum Alter bis zum tatsächlichen Altersvorsorgesparen abbildet. Jeder dieser Schritte wird empirisch untersucht, um mehr über die Hürden, vor denen die Individuen bei der Altersvorsorge stehen, herauszufinden. Basierend auf einer Instrument-Variablen-Schätzung wird gezeigt, dass die Bereitstellung von allgemeinen Informationen zur Altersvorsorge allein nicht ausreichend ist, um die Menschen dazu zu motivieren, über ihre eigene Altersvorsorge nachzudenken, für das Alter zu planen und diese Planungen dann in die Tat umzusetzen. Eine bessere Strategie kann es sein, gezielte Informationen genau dann bereitzustellen, wenn der Konsument sie benötigt. Diese Ideen und Schlussfolgerungen gehen auch aus den Arbeiten von Oehler und Wilhelm-Oehler (2009a, 2011) hervor. Sie analysieren Daten einer Befragung von Teilnehmern des Kurses „Altersvorsorge macht Schule“. Oehler und Wilhelm-Oehler schlagen eine praxisorientierte, fallbezogene finanzielle Bildung sowie „Meta Bildung“ vor um die „Meta Literacy“ zu verbessern (Oehler 2004, 2009a, 2011, 2012a, 2012d-e, 2013a-b). Das Konzept der „Meta Literacy“ besagt, dass es für die Lösung eines bestimmten Problems wichtiger ist Methoden und Personen zu kennen, mit welchen man dieses Problem lösen kann, als selbst allumfassend informiert zu sein(Oehler/Wilhelm-Oehler 2009, 2011; Oehler 2011, 2012a, 2012d-e, 2013a-b). Der Hauptgrund, warum Individuen nicht an Altersvorsorgeschulungen teilnehmen, ist laut der zugrundeliegenden Befragung, dass sie keine Zeit haben. Genau dieses Zeitproblem könnte durch die „Meta Bildung“ reduziert werden. Darüber hinaus kann gezeigt werden, dass die Selbsteinschätzung bezüglich des eigenen Wissens zur Altersvorsorge bei der Altersvorsorgeplanung und Umsetzung wichtiger ist, als das tatsächlich vorhandene Wissen. Es sollten also zudem Maßnahmen ergriffen werden, um den Konsumenten mehr Sicherheit im Umgang mit Altersvorsorgeprodukten zu vermitteln. Möglich wäre so etwas zum Beispiel durch hypothetische Situationen in Seminaren, in welchen die Teilnehmer aufgefordert werden Angebote einzuholen, um diese daraufhin in der Gruppe zu diskutieren (siehe auch Oehler 2004, 2005b, 2006, 2011, 2012a, 2012d-e, 2013a-b). In der Literatur der vergangen Dekaden wurde herausgefunden, dass Menschen Heuristiken verwenden um Entscheidungen zu vereinfachen. So konnten auch in dieser Arbeit Hinweise darauf gefunden werden, dass einige der befragten Personen Heuristiken verwendet haben. Diese Personen gaben an, dass sie ein Altersvorsorgeprodukt besitzen ohne sich vorher Gedanken darüber gemacht zu haben, wie viel Altersvorsorgevermögen notwendig ist, um eine ausreichende Rente zu erzielen. Daher müssen sie eine Art von Entscheidungsregel befolgt haben, welche ihnen dabei half, die richtige Altersvorsorgeentscheidung zu treffen. Die Verwendung von Heuristiken konnte häufiger bei Individuen mit „Riester-Rente“ beobachtet werden als bei Personen mit einer betrieblichen Altersvorsorge. Personen mit einer betrieblichen Altersvorsorge erhalten häufig über ihren Arbeitgeber, zum Beispiel bei Informationsveranstaltungen oder Seminaren, Informationen zur betrieblichen Altersvorsorge. Diese Seminare können dazu beigetragen haben, dass sich die Arbeitnehmer mehr Gedanken über ihre eigene Altersvorsorge machen als Personen, denen diese nicht zur Verfügung stehen

Effizienz der staatlichen Riester-Förderung - Eine empirische Analyse mit dem Sozio-oekonomischen Panel (SOEP)

While private pensions have long been an integral part of old age insurance in America, it is now also in Germany on the rise. To increase the attractiveness and acceptance of private pension provision in the population, saving incentives have been used. In Germany, a Riester saver expects a savings subsidy and a special expense deduction. In addition, all contributions to private retirement provision are taxed downstream. The incentive design is at the expense of the state budget, so the question of the efficiency of savings incentives, such as the Riester pension is an issue of central importance. Empirical studies that have addressed the effective-ness of savings incentives, have thereby limited solely to the effect on the savings rate. The results of these papers are very different. In this work the efficiency of the Riester-subsidy has a much wider interpretation. In particular, one should not limit the usefulness of such a fund-ing measure only on increasing the savings rate. As a fact can be established that an increase of signed Riester contracts is already a benefit of increased funding, depending on the kind of saving which had been substituted. An empirical analysis based on data from the Socio-Economic Panel shows that the objectives have already partly been achieved since many the likelihood of signing a Riester contract increases with the number of children. Additionally individuals with low income are increasingly signing Riester contracts

Declining Fertility in Europe – An Economic Appraisal

Demographic change can be observed throughout Europe. A bulk of literature has focused on ways to mitigate the consequences of ageing by reforming existing institutions of the welfare state. Another way to alleviate the long-run consequences of an ageing population is to re-verse the demographic development by increasing the fertility rate. This is the subject this paper is about. It offers a short review about existing approaches analysing the factors which influence individual’s decision to have children. Firstly, an outline of the potential effects of the increasing dependency ratio on the welfare state and economic growth is provided. Spe-cial attention is paid to the development in Germany which is one of the countries most se-verely affected by low fertility. Furthermore, different theoretical approaches are described which attempt to explain why couples choose to have fewer children today. Lastly empirical work is considered which shows how policy changes affect fertility and that those findings are not always in line with economic theory