The German Public Pension System: How it Was, How it Will Be

Germany still has a very generous public pay-as-you-go pension system. It is characterized by early effective retirement ages and very high effective replacement rates. Most workers receive virtually all of their retirement income from this public retirement insurance. Costs are almost 12 percent of GDP, more than 2.5 times as much as the U.S. Social Security System. The pressures exerted by population aging on this monolithic system, amplified by negative incentive effects, have induced a reform process that began in 1992 and is still ongoing. This process is the topic of this paper. It has two parts. Part A describes the German pension system as it has shaped the labor market until about the year 2000. Part B describes the three staged reform process that will convert the exemplary and monolithic Bismarckian public insurance system after the year 2000 into a complex multipillar system. The paper delivers an assessment in how far these reform steps will solve the pressing problems of a prototypical pay-as-you-go system of old age provision, hopefully with lessons for other countries with similar problems.

The German Public Pension System: How it Was, How it Will Be

Germany still has a very generous public pay-as-you-go pension system. It is characterized by early effective retirement ages and very high effective replacement rates. Most workers receive virtually all of their retirement income from this public retirement insurance. Costs are almost 12% of GDP, more than 2.5 times as much as the U.S. Social Security System. The pressures exerted by population aging on this monolithic system, amplified by negative incentive effects, have induced a reform process that began in 1992 and is still ongoing. This paper has two parts. Part A describes the German pension system as it has shaped the labor market from 1972 until today. Part B describes the reform process, which will convert the exemplary and monolithic Bismarckian public insurance system to a complex multi-pillar system. We provide a survey of the main features of the future German retirement system introduced by the so called “Riester Reform” in 2001 and an assessment in how far this last reform step will solve the pressing problems of the German system of old age provision.

Reforming the German Public Pension System

Chancellor Bismarck introduced public pensions in Germany more than 120 years ago. That system has expanded into one of the most generous pension systems in the world. Most workers receive virtually all of their retirement income from it. Costs are almost 12 percent of GDP, more than 2.5 times as much as the U.S. Social Security System. The pressures exerted by population aging, amplified by negative incentive effects, have induced a reform process that began in 1992 and reached its peak in the 2001 and 2004 reforms. The 2001 reform converted the exemplary monolithic Bismarckian public insurance system into a complex multipillar system. The 2004 reform converted the pay-as-you-go pillar into a quasi notional defined contribution (NDC) system. This paper delivers an assessment in how far these reform steps will solve the pressing pension problems in Germany.

How an Unfunded Pension System looks like Defined Benefits but works like Defined Contributions: The German Pension Reform

This paper describes the German pension reform process 1992-2007 with a stress on a remark-able development: the public pay-as-you-go-financed pension system has almost silently moved from a traditional defined benefit system to a system which works in many respects like a defined contribution system. The paper combines economic with political considerations, hopefully offering a few lessons that are useful also for other countries.

Early experience with the NexGen® CR-Flex Mobile knee arthroplasty system: results of 2-year follow-up

We evaluated our initial results in 57 patients who received the NexGen® CR-Flex Mobile knee system using the standard anterior approach in a prospective study. The bicondylar surface implant was cemented in position (Palacos®) without posterior patellar resurfacing. The clinical outcome and perioperative and post-operative complications were documented over 24 months of its use. Overall, after two years, good results were obtained for the categories of pain and ROM (range of motion), and for the HSS (knee society score) (pre-operative: 42/57; post-operative: 87/80). No pathological radiological findings were made during this period. Two patients, however, felt that the primary operation had not been successful because of lateral patellar tilt. This was corrected with revision surgery. It was remarkable that our patients achieved greater than 100° flexion within the first 14 days of the immediate post-operative period. Evaluation and comparison of the scores with those of conventional bicondylar surface replacement systems showed no relevant differences

How to make a Defined Benefit System Sustainable: The Sustainability Factor in the German Benefit Indexation Formula

Two years after the "Riester reform" the German public pension system is once again in need of reform. The demographic and labor market assumptions underpinning the Riester reform have proved to be unrealistic. An important target of current reform attempts is the formula that annually re-adjusts the benefits for all pensioners, the benefit indexation formula. Modifications of this formula can considerably ease the financial pressure of pensions on labor since this formula impacts existing pensioners as well as new retirees. This paper presents and examines the implications of possible alternatives to the current benefit indexation formula. In particular, we examine the self-stabilizing effect of the "sustainability factor" which aims at achieving more long-run stability and intergenerational equity in the pension system by linking annual benefit changes to the so-called system dependency ratio, the ratio of beneficiaries to contributors.

How an Unfunded Pension System looks like Defined Benefits but works like Defined Contributions: The German Pension Reform

This paper describes the German pension reform process 1992-2007 with a stress on a remark-able development: the public pay-as-you-go-financed pension system has almost silently moved from a traditional defined benefit system to a system which works in many respects like a defined contribution system. The paper combines economic with political considerations, hopefully offering a few lessons that are useful also for other countries.

It was (not) me: Causal Inference of Agency in goal-directed actions

Summary: 
The perception of one’s own actions depends on both sensory information and predictions derived from internal forward models [1]. The integration of these information sources depends critically on whether perceptual consequences are associated with one’s own action (sense of agency) or with changes in the external world that are not related to the action. The perceived effects of actions should thus critically depend on the consistency between the predicted and the actual sensory consequences of actions. To test this idea, we used a virtual-reality setup to manipulate the consistency between pointing movements and their visual consequences and investigated the influence of this manipulation on self-action perception. We then asked whether a Bayesian causal inference model, which assumes a latent agency variable controlling the attributed influence of the own action on perceptual consequences [2,3], would account for the empirical data: if the percept was attributed to the own action, visual and internal information should fuse in a Bayesian optimal manner, while this should not be the case if the visual stimulus was attributed to external influences. The model correctly fits the data, showing that small deviations between predicted and actual sensory information were still attributed to one’s own action, while this was not the case for large deviations when subjects relied more on internal information. We discuss the performance of this causal inference model in comparison to alternative biologically feasible statistical models applying methods for Bayesian model comparison.

Experiment: 
Participants were seated in front of a horizontal board on which their right hand was placed with the index finger on a haptic marker, representing the starting point for each trial. Participants were instructed to execute straight, fast (quasi-ballistic) pointing movements of fixed amplitude, but without an explicit visual target. The hand was obstructed from the view of the participants, and visual feedback about the peripheral part of the movement was provided by a cursor. Feedback was either veridical or rotated against the true direction of the hand movement by predefined angles. After each trial participants were asked to report the subjectively experienced direction of the executed hand movement by placing a mouse-cursor into that direction.

Model: 
We compared two probabilistic models: Both include a binary random gating variable (agency) that models the sense of ‘agency’; that is the belief that the visual feedback is influenced by the subject’s motor action. The first model assumes that both the visual feedback xv and the internal motor state estimate xe are directly caused by the (unobserved) real motor state xt (Fig. 1). The second model assumes instead that the expected visual feedback depends on the perceived direction of the own motor action xe (Fig. 2). 
Results: Both models are in good agreement with the data. Fig. A shows the model fit for Model 1 superpositioned to the data from a single subject. Fig. B shows the belief that the visual stimulus was influenced by the own action, which decreases for large deviations between predicted and real visual feedback. Bayesian model comparison shows a better fit for model 1.
Citations
[1] Wolpert D.M, Ghahramani, Z, Jordan, M. (1995) Science, 269, 1880-1882.
[2] Körding KP, Beierholm E, Ma WJ, Quartz S, Tenenbaum JB, et al (2007) PLoS ONE 2(9): e943.
[3] Shams, L., Beierholm, U. (2010) TiCS, 14: 425-432.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the BCCN Tübingen (FKZ: 01GQ1002), the CIN Tübingen, the European Union (FP7-ICT-215866 project SEARISE), the DFG and the Hermann and Lilly Schilling Foundation

Szenarien zur mittel- und langfristigen Entwicklung der Anzahl der Erwerbspersonen und der Erwerbstätigen in Deutschland

Dieses Papier legt Projektionen zur mittel- und langfristigen Entwicklung der Anzahl der Erwerbspersonen sowie der Erwerbstätigen in Deutschland vor. Für unser vorsichtig optimistisches Szenario gehen wir von einer allmählichen Angleichung an die heutige Arbeitsmarktsituation in Dänemark aus. In diesem Fall ergibt sich ein Rückgang in der Anzahl der Erwerbspersonen um etwa 2,8 Mio. auf etwa 39,4 Mio. in 2040. Inwieweit dieses Szenario realisiert wird, hängt von dem Ausmaß künftiger Arbeitsmarktreformen und den daraus resultierenden Veränderungen im Erwerbsverhalten der Bevölkerung und der Arbeitsnachfrage ab. Ohne weitere Arbeitsmarktreformen würde die Anzahl der Erwerbspersonen bis 2040 um über 9 Mio. auf 32,6 Mio. zurückgehen. Zugleich altert die Erwerbsbevölkerung. Das Durchschnittsalter wird bis zum Jahr 2040 von 40 auf knapp 42 Jahre ansteigen. Der Anteil der Erwerbspersonen im Alter 55+ wird von etwa 11% auf 20% in 2040 und 21% in 2050 steigen. In jedem Fall, auch dem günstigsten, wird sowohl die Erwerbspersonen- als auch die Erwerbstätigenanzahl künftig schrumpfen. Die Wirtschaftspolitik sollte dies im Auge behalten.

Entwicklung und Evaluation von POL-Fällen zum Thema zentrale Bewegungsstörungen für den Studiengang Physiotherapie sowie Beurteilung dieses POL-Systems

Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Entwicklung, Moderation und Evaluation von POL-Fällen für den 2001 vom Fachbereich Medizin der Philipps-Universität Marburg und vom Fachbereich Pflege und Gesundheit der Fachhochschule Fulda gegründeten Bachelor- und Master-Studiengang in Physiotherapie. Dazu wurden drei Fälle zum Thema „degenerative Erkrankungen“ und drei Fälle zum Thema „zentrale Bewegungsstörungen“ für das POL-System aufbereitet und unterrichtet. Dabei soll die Ausarbeitung nachfolgenden Tutoren ausreichend Lehrmaterial zur eigenen Information mitgeben. Eine anschließende Evaluation der Unterrichtseinheiten dieses POL-Systems durch die Studierenden erlaubte die konkreten Fälle weiter zu verbessern und Erfahrungen als Tutor zu sammeln. Die Ergebnisse der Evaluation waren für beide Themenkomplexe ähnlich. Komplizierte Fälle, die „schwieriger“, bzw. weniger eindeutig waren, wurden besser bewertet. Eine Strukturierung während des Vortragens und ebenfalls eine ausreichende Struktur bei der Fallbesprechung während des letzten Schritts, wurden ebenso als positiv empfunden. Auch war den Studierenden sehr wichtig, bei der Besprechung einen Spezialisten dabei zu haben, um eine kompetente Bewertung der selbst gesammelten Information zu bekommen. Die Forderung, dass der Moderator / Tutor viel Fachwissen mitbringen soll, konnte die Evaluation weder bejahen, noch verneinen. Davon unabhängig wurde der Tutor relativ gut bewertet. Dies zeigte, dass jede weitere Erfahrung im Gebiet der Moderation solcher POL-Fälle positive Auswirkungen auf den zukünftigen Unterricht und den Erfolg hat. Somit ist eine gute pädagogische Ausbildung für diese Unterrichtsart für jeden Tutor eigentlich essenziell. Ein Wissenstest, sowohl vor, als auch nach dem POL-Unterricht, zeigte zwar einen gewissen Wissenszuwachs, doch kann dieser nicht als alleiniger Erfolg von POL gelten. Die POL-Stunden fanden parallel zum regulären, auf Seminaren und Vorlesungen basierenden, Unterricht statt. Neben diesen individuellen Erfahrungen wurde noch nach objektiveren Ergebnissen von POL Evaluationen gesucht. Die Diskussion um POL begann zwar schon recht früh nach der Einführung, aber die ersten Veröffentlichungen fanden erst in den 80er Jahren des letzten Jahrhunderts statt. Große Reviews Anfang der 90er versuchten die Fragen: „Verbessert POL den Wissensstand der Studierenden?“, „Sind POL-Absolventen besser für lebenslanges Lernen geeignet?“, „Verändert POL die Denkstruktur der Teilnehmer“ oder „Sind POL-Absolventen besser für das Leben unter den Bedingungen der modernen Gesundheitsökonomie geeignet?“ zu beantworten. Die meisten Literaturdaten zeigen die Schwierigkeiten und Erfolge exemplarisch auf. So sind gerade die finanziellen Aspekte wichtig: Kleinere Gruppen erfordern neue räumliche und pädagogische Gegebenheiten. Wer soll die zusätzliche Lehrbeanspruchung erfüllen? Dabei ist das Thema Tutor sehr wichtig. Aber auch bezüglich der Tutorausbildung gehen die Meinungen in der Literatur auseinander. Soll der Tutor eher Spezialist auf dem Fachgebiet sein? Dann sind meistens die Ergebnisse der anschließenden Wissensüberprüfung besser. Doch geht dies häufig auch mit einer ausgeprägten Lenkung der Studierenden einher. Sind die Tutoren zu zurückhaltend und keine Spezialisten auf dem Gebiet, scheinen die Ergebnisse der Abschlussexamen schlechter zu sein. Neuere Literatur liefert weiterhin vor allem Fallbeschreibungen und wenig analysierende Ergebnisse. Eine objektive Antwort auf die Frage: „Ist POL das bessere Lehrsystem?“ wird es nie geben. Zu viele Aspekte spielen in die Bewertung mit hinein. Gerade wenn es um finanzielle Auswirkungen geht, zeigt sich, dass gute medizinische Lehre immer mit mehr Aufwand verbunden sein wird und nie „billig“ sein kann. Preiswert ja, billig nein