Risiken im Lebenszyklus: Theorie und Evidenz

Der einzelne Mensch ist im Lebensverlauf erheblichen biometrischen, ökonomischen, familiären und politischen Risiken ausgesetzt. Viele meinen, diese wären in den letzten Jahren größer geworden. Haben wir die richtigen Institutionen, um diese Risiken effizient abzudecken? Unter Institutionen verstehen wir individuelles Sparen, familiäre Hilfe, private Versicherungen und schließlich den Staat mit seinen Sozialversicherungen. Wo und wann funktionieren diese Institutionen? Wo und wann nicht? Was muss man tun, um sie zu verbessern? Wie sieht modernes "Social Risk Management" aus? Der erste Teil dieses Übersichtsbeitrags skizziert die wirtschaftstheoretischen Grundlagen des Sparverhaltens, der Portefeuillewahl und der Versicherungsnachfrage. Im Hauptteil werden die empirischen Befunde gesammelt, um im dritten Teil wirtschaftspolitische Schlussfolgerungen zu ziehen

Dividend taxes and corporate financial policy An empirical investigation

SIGLELD:D50106/84 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Shareholder Primacy and the Distribution of Wealth

In recent years a growing consensus has emerged in favour of the shareholder-oriented model of the corporation. Increasingly, this model is justified not on the basis of shareholder ownership rights but on efficiency grounds: whoever the immediate and direct beneficiaries of shareholder-orientation, it is argued, it ultimately indirectly benefits everyone by ensuring the maximization of aggregate social wealth. The prevalence of this view has caused the distributional dimensions of corporate governance to be neglected. This paper examines the distribution of share ownership and financial wealth in the US and the UK. Although share ownership has become more widely spread, it argues, it remains very heavily concentrated with the result that shareholder primacy is in reality the primacy of a small privileged elite. After an exploration of the contradictions of working class shareholding and the impact of greater shareholder-orientation on the distribution of wealth, the paper concludes by re-evaluating Hansmann and Kraakman's 'end of corporate history' thesis, arguing that recent developments represent a triumph not for efficiency but for the growing power of the shareholder class

U.K. annuity rates, money's worth and pension replacement ratios 1957–2002

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in the Geneva papers. The definitive publisher-authenticated version: The Geneva Papers, Volume 29, Number 3, July 2004 , pp. 371-393(23) is available online at: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/This paper constructs a time series of annuity rates in the U.K. for 1957–2002, and examines the pricing of U.K. annuities, and the relationship between the accumulation and decumulation phases of a defined contribution pension scheme by focusing on the properties of the pension replacement ratio. The paper computes the money's worth of annuities over the sample period, and finds that on average the money's worth has been just less than unity, implying that annuities are fairly priced. Using data on annuity returns and the returns on other financial assets, the paper simulates replacement ratios, to build up a frequency distribution of the pension replacement ratio for a U.K. individual. These frequency distributions illustrate the risk in the pension replacement ratio faced by an individual who saves in a typical defined contribution pension scheme

Turnover as a Measure of Demand for Existing Homes

Changes in the turnover of existing homes are often equated with changes in housing demand, but it is not clear if, or why, this linkage exists. This paper documents the positive correlation between changes in turnover and changes in housing demand and develops a search model that explain the linkage. One implication of the analysis is that, for high frequency data, turnover is superior to price as an indicator of change in housing demand. Copyright American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.