Aging, Labor Markets and Pension Reform in Austria

This paper investigates the dynamic consequences of demographic change and various pension reform scenarios for Austria. The analysis is based on a computable overlapping generations model with life-cycle labor supply, savings, and search unemployment. The public sector is decomposed into general government and an unfunded pension system with a tax benefit linkage. Our quantitative analysis considers several pension reform scenarios on top of the demographic transition in an aging society. We find that lowering the pension replacement rate and increasing the retirement age can have strong labor market effects. They strengthen labor supply both in terms of job search intensity, leading to lower unemployment rates, and hours worked.Pension reform, demographic change, unemployment

Pension Reform, Retirement and Life-Cycle Unemployment

The labor market effects of pension reform stem from retirement behavior and from job search and hours worked of prime age workers. This paper investigates the impact of four often proposed policy measures for sustainable pensions: strengthening the tax benefit link, moving from wage to price indexation of benefits, lengthening calculation periods, and introducing more actuarial fairness in pension assessment. We provide some analytical results and use a computational model to demonstrate the economic and welfare impact of recent pension reform in Austria.Pension Reform, Retirement, Job Search, Life-cycle Unemployment

Aging and the Financing of Social Security in Switzerland

This paper studies the quantitative impact of aging on the financing of social security and the public sector in Switzerland. Demographic projections forecast a doubling of the dependency ratio until 2050 as well as an increase of 10% in total population due to longer life expectancy. We use a computational growth model with overlapping generations, including labor market adjustment on five different behavioural margins: labor market participation, hours worked, job search, retirement, and on-the-job training. Starting with a passive fiscal strategy, our simulations show that a doubling of the old age dependency ratio might reduce per capita income by more than 20 percent and necessitate a long-run increase of wage taxes and social security contributions by 21 percentage points. A comprehensive reform package, including an increase in the effective retirement age to 68 years and several other measures, may limit the increase of the tax burden to 4 percentage points of the value added tax and reduce the decline of per capita income to 6% in the long-run. firms typically have a high growth potential, need external funds to finance investment, and rely on the key effort and know-how of inside entrepreneurs. Given the limited amount of tangible assets and the non-contractible nature of entrepreneurial effort, these firms are often financially constrained. Access to external funds becomes an important factor in the expansion of innovative industries. This paper models a two sector economy of innovative and standard industries and shows how the pattern of comparative advantage is shaped by factor endowments and variables relating to corporate finance. In particular, a larger equity ratio of young entrepreneurial firms and tough corporate governance standards relax the financing constraints and create a comparative advantage in innovative industries.Aging, social security, retirement, human capital, unemployment

Aging, Labor Markets and Pension Reform in Austria

This paper investigates the dynamic consequences of demographic change and various pension reform scenarios for Austria. The analysis is based on a computable overlapping generations model with life-cycle labor supply, savings, and search unemployment. The public sector is decomposed into general government and an unfunded pension system with a tax benefit linkage. Our quantitative analysis considers several pension reform scenarios on top of the demographic transition in an aging society. We find that lowering the pension replacement rate and increasing the retirement age can have strong labor market effects. They strengthen labor supply both in terms of job search intensity, leading to lower unemployment rates, and hours worked.Pension reform, demographic change, unemployment

Transition Strategies in Fundamental Tax Reform

This paper discusses alternative transition strategies of moving towards an S-base cash-flow business tax. While the tax has attractive neutrality properties, moving from the current situation towards the new system often involves a stark trade-off between short-run losses and long-run gains. We evaluate several alternative transition strategies. The preferred strategy consists of instantaneous implementation, an 80% devaluation of historical tax depreciation claims, and transitory deficit financing for intertemporal tax smoothing. This policy prevents windfall gains or losses on old capital, avoids a negative impact on labor market performance and thereby prevents short-run income losses. Simulations with a calibrated model for Germany indicate that this transition policy induces strong investment driven growth and yields a 7% gain in GDP per capita and a reduction in the unemployment rate by 1.5 percentage points in the long-run.Cash-flow tax, investment, unemployment, transition policy

Pension Reform, Retirement and Life-Cycle Unemployment

The labor market effects of pension reform stem from retirement behavior and from job search and hours worked of prime age workers. This paper investigates the impact of four often proposed policy measures for sustainable pensions: strengthening the tax benefit link, moving from wage to price indexation of benefits, lengthening calculation periods, and introducing more actuarial fairness in pension assessment. We provide some analytical results and use a computational model to demonstrate the economic and welfare impact of recent pension reform in Austria.pension reform, retirement, job search, life-cycle unemployment

Economic ageing and demographic change

This paper presents a generalised model of overlapping generations with economic ageing of households. Economic age is defined as a set of personal attributes such as earnings potential and tastes that are characteristic of a person’s position in the life-cycle. We separate the concepts of economic age and time since birth by assuming only a small number of different states of age. Agents sharing the same economic characteristics are aggregated analytically to a small number of age groups. The model thus allows for a very parsimonious approximation of life-cycle differences in earnings, wealth and consumption. As an illustration, we apply the model quantitatively to study the impact of demographic change.

Exports, Foreign Direct Investment and the Costs of Corporate Taxation

Depending on the definition of the tax base, the statutory corporate tax rate implies rather different measures of effective average and marginal tax rates. This paper develops a model of a monopolistically competitive industry with extensive and intensive business investment and shows how these margins respond to changes in average and marginal corporate tax rates. Intensive investment refers to the size of a firm's capital stock. Extensive investment refers to the firm's production location and reflects the trade-off between exports and foreign direct investment as alternative modes of foreign market access. The paper derives comparative static effects of the corporate tax and shows how the cost of public funds depends on the elasticities of the extensive and intensive investment responses.Exports, foreign direct investment, corporate taxation, extensive and intensive investment, costs of public funds

Corporate Taxation and the Welfare State

The paper compares the impact of corporate taxation and social insurance on foreign direct investment (FDI) and unemployment. Four main results are derived: (i) the optimal size of the welfare state depends on the degree of risk-aversion and the unemployment rate as a measure of labor income risk. The unemployment rate partly reflects the country’s exposure to globalization; (ii) corporate taxation and social insurance have equivalent effects on unemployment and outbound FDI; (iii) while an increase in the corporate tax can raise corporate tax revenue, it is rather likely to worsen the government’s total fiscal stance. A corporate tax cut can thus be self-financing due to fiscal increasing returns in the presence of a large public sector; (iv) a corporate tax should be used to contribute to welfare state financing only in exceptional cases when job creation is excessive and unemployment is inefficiently low. These conditions are probably unlikely to hold in Europe’s generous welfare states with high structural unemployment rates.corporate tax, foreign direct investment, unemployment, welfare state

Economic Aging and Demographic Change

This paper presents a generalized model of overlapping generations with economic aging of households. Economic age is defined as a set of personal attributes such as earnings potential and tastes that are characteristic of a person's position in the life-cycle. We separate the concepts of economic age and time since birth in assuming only a small number of different states of age. Agents sharing the same economic characteristics are aggregated analytically to a low number of age groups. The model thus allows for a very parsimonious approximation of life-cycle differences in earnings, wealth and consumption. As an illustration, we quantitatively apply the model to study the impact of demographic change.Overlapping Generations, Aging, Demographic Change, Life-cycle