On the Role of Pension Systems in Economic Development and Demographic Transition

In this paper we examine whether di¤erent pension systems a¤ect the set of initial human capital conditions capturing an economy in a low steady state equilibrium income. To analyze this problem, we employ a three period over- lapping generations model where fertility and investments into the children?s education are chosen endogenously. We show that education investments are higher and start at lower income levels for a pay-as-you-go pension system econ- omy compared to an informal, fertility related one. The income threshold needed to escape the ?poverty trap? is therefore lower if a pay-as-you-go pension sys- tem is employed. Moreover, unless the economy is caught in the low income steady state, a pay-as-you-go pension system supports higher equilibrium in- come. We further highlight that pension systems in?uence the timing of de- mographic transition through their di¤erent valuation of fertility, contributing to the explanation for observed di¤erences between developed and developing countries.

Pension Systems and their Influence on Fertility and Growth

This paper studies the implications of di¤erent public pension systems on fertility and economic growth. Employing a three period overlapping gener- ations endogenous growth model we compare the di¤erent impacts of pay-as- you-go-, fully funded- and informal pension systems. The novelty of our work lies in the formulation of altruism that is assumed to be one sided (descending) for economies represented by a public pension system and two sided (descend- ing and ascending) for economies with informal pension systems. Through the incorporation of a mixed procreation motive we can study the case of fully crowded out intrafamilial transfers inside a public pension system model while still capturing fertility endogenously. We show that the introduction of public pension systems to a developing economy reduce fertility and stimulate economic growth. Through a comparison of the di¤erent public pension systems we highlight that a fully funded pension system results in higher economic growth compared to a pay-as-you-go one despite higher fertility because the growth enhancing e¤ect of the higher capital stock is dominant. This suggests that observed fertility and growth di¤erences between the US and Europe can partly be explained by the di¤erent types of pension systems.

What Determines Fiscal Policy? Evidence from German States

This paper explores the factors behind the time path of real spending and revenue in the West German states from 1975 to 2004. The empirical approach stresses robustness and takes into account a large set of economic and political variables. Our results suggest that common economic factors and, to a smaller degree, state-specific economic developments are important determinants of state fiscal performance. In comparison, the influence of political factors is limited both in statistical and quantitative terms. Finally, there is evidence that addressing governance problems and ensuring flexibility in terms of fiscal strategy are important ingredients for any policy aimed at improving fiscal outcomes at the state level.German Länder, fiscal policy, public spending, public debt, extreme bounds analysis, governance

How visual cues to speech rate influence speech perception

Spoken words are highly variable and therefore listeners interpret speech sounds relative to the surrounding acoustic context, such as the speech rate of a preceding sentence. For instance, a vowel midway between short /ɑ/ and long /a:/ in Dutch is perceived as short /ɑ/ in the context of preceding slow speech, but as long /a:/ if preceded by a fast context. Despite the well-established influence of visual articulatory cues on speech comprehension, it remains unclear whether visual cues to speech rate also influence subsequent spoken word recognition. In two ‘Go Fish’-like experiments, participants were presented with audio-only (auditory speech + fixation cross), visual-only (mute videos of talking head), and audiovisual (speech + videos) context sentences, followed by ambiguous target words containing vowels midway between short /ɑ/ and long /a:/. In Experiment 1, target words were always presented auditorily, without visual articulatory cues. Although the audio-only and audiovisual contexts induced a rate effect (i.e., more long /a:/ responses after fast contexts), the visual-only condition did not. When, in Experiment 2, target words were presented audiovisually, rate effects were observed in all three conditions, including visual-only. This suggests that visual cues to speech rate in a context sentence influence the perception of following visual target cues (e.g., duration of lip aperture), which at an audiovisual integration stage bias participants’ target categorization responses. These findings contribute to a better understanding of how what we see influences what we hear

What determines fiscal policy? Evidence from German states

This paper explores the factors behind the time path of real spending and revenue in the West German states from 1975 to 2004. The empirical approach stresses robustness and takes into account a large set of economic and political variables. Our results suggest that common economic factors and, to a smaller degree, state-specific economic developments are important determinants of state fiscal performance. In comparison, the influence of political factors is limited both in statistical and quantitative terms. Finally, there is evidence that addressing governance problems and ensuring flexibility in terms of fiscal strategy are important ingredients for any policy aimed at improving fiscal outcomes at the state level. --German Länder,fiscal policy,public spending,public debt,extreme bounds analysis,governance.

A function space framework for structural total variation regularization with applications in inverse problems

In this work, we introduce a function space setting for a wide class of structural/weighted total variation (TV) regularization methods motivated by their applications in inverse problems. In particular, we consider a regularizer that is the appropriate lower semi-continuous envelope (relaxation) of a suitable total variation type functional initially defined for sufficiently smooth functions. We study examples where this relaxation can be expressed explicitly, and we also provide refinements for weighted total variation for a wide range of weights. Since an integral characterization of the relaxation in function space is, in general, not always available, we show that, for a rather general linear inverse problems setting, instead of the classical Tikhonov regularization problem, one can equivalently solve a saddle-point problem where no a priori knowledge of an explicit formulation of the structural TV functional is needed. In particular, motivated by concrete applications, we deduce corresponding results for linear inverse problems with norm and Poisson log-likelihood data discrepancy terms. Finally, we provide proof-of-concept numerical examples where we solve the saddle-point problem for weighted TV denoising as well as for MR guided PET image reconstruction

Machiavelli’s Possibility Hypothesis

This paper discusses the thesis that in Arrow’s Possibility Theorem the dictator (merely) serves as a solution to the logical problem of aggregating preference while Machiavelli’s dictator, the Prince, has the historical function to bring order into a world of chaos and thus make society ready for the implementation of a republican structure.Dictator, aggregation of preferences, republic, democracy