A New Pension Formula: For More Fairness and Less Old-Age Poverty

The statutory pension insurance system is set up according to the principle of participatory equivalence. This principle seeks to hold pension claims at a specific ratio to paid contributions so that a redistribution of income does not take place. In truth, however, there is a massive redistribution in favor of wage earners with higher incomes, as these individuals draw on their pensions for a longer period of time due to their greater statistical life expectancy. If life expectancy was taken into consideration in the pension formula, this would not only lead to greater distributional neutrality, it would also lead to significantly less old-age poverty among long-term contributors to the pension system.Social security, Life expectancy, Poverty, Redistribution

Fairness of Public Pensions and Old-Age Poverty

In several OECD countries, public pay-as-you-go financed pension systems have undergone major reforms in which future retirement benefit promises have been scaled down. A consequence of these reforms is that especially in countries with a tight tax-benefit linkage, the retirement benefit claims of low-income workers might not even exceed the minimum income guarantee which the government provides the aged. Recently, some German politicians have criticized this likely development because it was unjust that persons who have paid contributions over a long working life end up with no higher benefits than people who have never worked or paid any contributions. However, the government defended the current retirement benefit formula with the argument that every Euro paid as contributions had exactly the same value in generating future retirement benefits. But this logic has been questioned recently, e.g. by Breyer and Hupfeld (2009), since the value of a contributed Euro depends on the life expectancy of the individual, which is positively correlated with annual income. In that earlier paper, we introduced the concept of "distributive neutrality", which takes income-group-specific differences in life expectancy into account. The present paper estimates the relationship between annual earnings and life expectancy of German retirees empirically and shows how the formula that links benefits to contributions would have to be modified to achieve distributive neutrality. We compare the new formula to the benefit formulas in other OECD countries and analyze a data set provided by the German Pension Insurance Office on a large cohort of pensioners to find out how the old-age poverty rate would be affected by the proposed change of the benefit formula. Finally, we discuss other possible effects of a change in the benefit formula, especially on the labour supply of different earnings groups.Social security, life expectancy, poverty, redistribution

On the Fairness of Early Retirement Provisions

Declining fertility and increasing longevity have rendered public pension systems in many OECD countries unsustainable and have triggered substantial reforms of these systems. One of the officially declared reform objectives is to raise the average retirement age. Crucial parameters for this endeavor are first the legal retirement age and secondly the early retirement provisions inherent in the public pension system. In this paper we discuss several notions of "fairness" of early retirement provisions in pay-as-you-go financed public pension systems and we claim that the "right" notion of fairness depends upon the objectives pursued in the design of pension systems. We point out the problems attached to the extreme positions "efficiency" and "welfare maximization" and propose a more modest concept of equity called "distributive neutrality", which is based on the notion that the ratio between total benefits and total contributions to the pension system should not depend systematically on the individual’s ability. By applying this concept to the German retirement benefit formula and taking empirically estimated relationships between average annual income, life expectancy and retirement age into account, we show that at the present discount rate of 3.6 per cent per year there is systematic redistribution from low to high earners, which would be attenuated if the discount rate were raised. This seemingly paradoxical finding is due to the fact that in our data set, there is a negative relationship between earnings and retirement age.public pension system, early retirement

Neue Rentenformel: mehr Gerechtigkeit und weniger Altersarmut

Die gesetzliche Rentenversicherung ist nach dem Prinzip der Teilhabe-Äquivalenz aufgebaut. Dies soll bewirken, dass die Rentenansprüche in einer bestimmten Relation zu den gezahlten Beiträgen stehen, also vorrangig keine Umverteilung stattfindet. In Wahrheit gibt es jedoch eine massive Umverteilung zu Gunsten der Bezieher höherer Erwerbseinkommen, die aufgrund ihrer statistisch höheren Lebenserwartung eine längere Renten- Bezugsdauer aufweisen. Wird die Lebenserwartung in der Rentenformel berücksichtigt, führt dies nicht nur zu einer höheren Verteilungsneutralität, sondern auch zu deutlich weniger Altersarmut unter langjährigen Beitragszahlern.Social security, Life expectancy, Poverty, Redistribution

Student Satisfaction with Hotel Management Internship in the multi - cultural context of the University of the South Pacific

Many international hospitality organisations interact and effectively work with people from different cultural backgrounds. The issue of cultural awareness, sensitivity, and understanding of cultural differences has created unusual challenges for interns to work effectively in a multi-cultural workplace and deliver quality services to an international tourism market. This qualitative study of student reflections and staff facilitation of internships will determine the factors that contribute to student satisfaction with their working and learning experiences. The proposed research will be of value and have practical implications for both academics who wish to further study student internship satisfaction, sponsors and industry professionals as this research will serve as a framework for a successful internship experience for future hospitality practitioners

As Time Goes By

Illustration of blue hourglass and pink womanhttps://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/cht-sheet-music/2646/thumbnail.jp

Let\u27s Put Out The Lights And Go To Sleep

Portrait of Rudy Vallehttps://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/cht-sheet-music/7956/thumbnail.jp

Linkage between catalytic mechanism and conformational dynamics in (βα)₈-barrel enzymes at the example of Imidazole Glycerol Phosphate Synthase

Imidazole glycerol phosphate synthase (ImGPS) is a bienzyme complex from histidine biosynthesis, which consists of the cyclase subunit HisF and the glutaminase subunit HisH. In HisH, glutamine is hydrolysed to glutamate and ammonia, which is channelled through an intramolecular tunnel to the HisF active site, where it reacts with N’-[(5’-phosphoribulosyl)-formimino]-5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide ribonucleotide (PrFAR) to form imidazole glycerol phosphate (ImGP), a precursor of histidine, and 5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide-ribotide (AICAR), which is salvaged in purine biosynthesis. The two reactions are tightly coupled: HisH is strongly activated by the binding of PrFAR to HisF by a V-type allosteric mechanism to limit unproductive glutamine hydrolysis. HisF adopts a ()8-barrel fold, the most common and versatile single domain fold in nature. Proteins with this fold are of particular interest to study fundamental principles of enzyme catalysis. One of these aspects is the connection between conformational dynamics and catalytic function. In the last few decades, this connection has become a major field of research and many examples have been found in which motions have a central role in the catalytic cycle of the respective enzyme. The first part of this thesis is dedicated to the connection between catalysis and conformational dynamics, in particular of the 11-loop (loop1) in HisF, which is in close proximity to the active site. This loop has previously been shown to be important for HisF activity and has been observed to adopt two distinct conformations in X-ray crystal structures called the open and closed conformations. Mutational analysis in this work identified several key amino acid residues within loop1 that are essential for catalysis. Specifically, the mutations G20P, G30P and F23A resulted in a complete loss or a drastic reduction of HisF activity. The two glycine residues appear to serve as hinges on which the loop can move to adopt different conformations. F23 probably serves as a hydrophobic anchor, which fixes the loop in the open conformation. NMR paramagnetic enhancement measurements confirmed that the open conformation is the main conformation in solution, for wild type HisF as well as HisF F23A and HisF G20P. Changes in loop dynamics for these two variants were confirmed with limited proteolysis and electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy. To gain a deeper insight into HisF catalysis, transient ligand binding kinetics were recorded. Since the fluorescence of W156 of HisF proved unsuitable as a binding signal, the unnatural amino acid L-(7-hydroxycoumarin-4-yl) ethylglycine (CouA) was incorporated at position 132. The resulting variant HisF K132CouA showed wild-type like activity and a strong spectroscopic signal upon binding of all used HisF ligands. Stopped-flow measurements allowed for the determination of binding and dissociation rate for all ligands and a kinetic model for the entire ammonia dependent HisF reaction was formulated. The kinetic analysis also revealed an induced-fit type conformational motion upon PrFAR binding. This motions could not be observed for labelled variants carrying the mutations F23A or G20P, indicating that loop1 plays an integral role in this conformational change. The second part of this thesis is concerned with the allosteric communication within ImGPS, specifically the stimulation of glutaminase activity in the HisH subunit. It was already previously recognized that conformational dynamics are of central importance for the transmission of the allosteric signal in ImGPS. Here, it could be shown that the flexible HisF loop1 has a strong influence on the activation of HisH. Mutations in loop1 that reduced HisF activity also decreased capability of HisF to stimulate HisH activity. Both effects appear to be coupled to the induced-fit type motion of loop1 after PrFAR binding. Moreover, also other residues outside loop1 were identified that play an important role in ImGPS allostery. Specifically, the crystal structure of the VIII mutant V48A, which was observed to reduce HisH stimulation in a previous study, led to the discovery of conformational changes of I7 and L169, two residues within the ammonia channel of HisF. Mutation of either residue led to a reduction in HisH stimulation. Previously, two hypotheses have been proposed to explain the strong allosteric activation of HisH catalysis on a molecular level: The formation of the oxyanion hole and increased release of ammonia. A factor that has hitherto not been studied is whether the protonation states of catalytic H178 and C84 in HisH change during allosteric activation. Measurement of the pH-dependency of the HisH reaction allowed for the determination of two pKa values which most likely correspond to these two residues. This conclusion was supported by measurements of the inactivation kinetics of HisH with the suicide inhibitor acivicin. NMR measurements with 13C labelled H178 at physiological pH demonstrated that the catalytic histidine is protonated upon allosteric activation, which in turn stabilizes the deprotonated state of the catalytic cysteine. This change only manifested in the presence of glutamine and the PrFAR analogue ProFAR, indicating that both ImGPS substrates are needed for HisH to adopt the active conformation. It was hypothesized that the HisF residue D98, which is located within the interface with HisH, contributes the change of the protonation state of H178. Indeed, the mutation D98E, which mimics the approximation of the D98 carboxyl group to the active site of HisH led to a significant increase in both basal and ProFAR activated HisH activity. The closer proximity of the carboxyl group in the mutant D98E could be confirmed by X-ray crystallography. In a structure with bound glutamine and ProFAR, E98 shows an alternative conformation, which is an indication that it undergoes a conformational change during allosteric activation. While these results show that the tuning of the protonation of the catalytic residues in HisH is part of the activation mechanism, mutational analysis of V51 and the Ω-loop of HisH support the hypothesis that the correct formation of the oxyanion hole also makes a significant contribution to the stimulation of HisH. Thus, it appears that several factors contribute to HisH stimulation, highlighting the complex nature of allostery in this bienzyme complex. Finally, measurements of the steady-state concentration of thioester intermediate carrying enzyme showed that both half-reactions, the formation and the hydrolysis of the thioester, are strongly accelerated during allosteric activation of HisH. This further supports the notion that allosteric activation influences a chemical factors that are important for both half-reactions. In conclusion, the results presented in this thesis have revealed important information on the inner workings of the bienzyme complex ImGPS. Conformational dynamics are clearly of paramount importance both for the reaction catalyzed by HisF as well as for the allosteric activation of HisH. Further study of this intriguing system will undoubtedly increase our understanding of enzyme catalysis and enzyme complexes

When Yoba Plays The Rumba On The Tuba

Title Onlyhttps://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/cht-sheet-music/11122/thumbnail.jp

As Time Goes By

Photograph of Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreidhttps://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/cht-sheet-music/8630/thumbnail.jp