November 2021
19Nov

Early Retirement of Employees in Demanding Jobs: Evidence from a German Pension Reform

By Johannes Geyer, Svenja Lorenz, Thomas Zwick & Mona Bruns Early retirement options are usually targeted at employees at risk of not reaching their regular retirement age in employment. An important at-risk group comprises employees who have worked in demanding jobs for many years. This group may be particularly negatively affected by the abolition of early retirement options. To measure differences in labor market reactions of employees in low- and high-demand jobs, we exploit the quasi-natural experiment of a cohort-specific...

November 19, 2021
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05Nov

Pensions, Income Taxes and Homeownership: A Cross-Country Analysis

By Hans Fehr, Maurice Hofmann & George Kudrna This paper studies the role of pensions and income taxes in determining homeownership and household wealth. It provides a cross-country analysis, using tax and pension policy designs in Germany, the US and Australia. These developed nations have similar incomes per capita but very different homeownership rates, with the US and Australia having much higher homeownership compared to Germany. The question is to what extent the observed differences in homeownership are induced by...

November 5, 2021
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04Nov

Germany’s $400 Billion Pension Fund Eyes Capital Markets Boost

Germany’s future government plans to let the country’s pension system invest in the capital markets for the first time in what would be a small revolution in how Europe’s largest economy manages money for its growing ranks of retirees. Negotiators for the Social Democrats, Greens and the market-oriented Free Democrats are seeking to hammer out details that would allow the $400 billion pension system to start investing some of its reserves into stocks and bonds, which would bring it more...

November 4, 2021
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October 2021
25Oct

Israel’s Holocaust survivors to be supplemented NIS 20 million

The government has secured an extra NIS 20 million in annual payments for Holocaust survivors living in Israel following negotiations with the German Finance Ministry. The cabinet approved the agreement on Sunday. Some 3,700 Holocaust survivors who receive pensions from the German government will be eligible for the increased payments. The negotiations were conducted by the Social Equality and Pensioners Ministry and the Authority for the Rights of Holocaust Survivors. All those eligible for German pensions will receive an extra €100...

October 25, 2021
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07Oct

More Holocaust survivors to receive pensions from German government

The Claims Conference, which negotiates payments for Holocaust survivors with the German government, announced Wednesday it had secured pensions for an additional 6,500 Holocaust survivors who endured the siege of Leningrad, as well as other groups who were able to flee Nazi terror in other parts of Europe. In its annual negotiations with the German government, the NGO works to expand the number of people eligible for compensation. The 6,500 survivors who will benefit from the latest announced payments will...

October 7, 2021
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06Oct

German occupational pension execs call on next govt to ease rules

Executives of company pension schemes in Germany are calling on the country’s political parties, which are discussing to form a coalition for the next government, to tackle the complexity surrounding occupational pensions in favour of opting-out solutions, according to a survey conducted by Willis Towers Watson (WTW). The research – carried out last week during the annual WTW’s occupational pension conference bAV-Konferenz – showed that 44% of respondents believed the decision by the next government to simplify occupational pensions schemes...

October 6, 2021
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05Oct

Germany added to Sanofi pension fund in Belgium cross-border first

Sanofi European Pension Fund has become the first Belgium-based pension fund to begin operating cross-border activity in Germany, with two Hoechst companies coming on board. The development means that the liabilities associated with more than 5,000 pensioners of Hoechst GmbH and Hoechst Trevira Gmbh are being funded via Sanofi European Pension Fund. Hoechst AG was one of the three largest chemical and pharmaceutical companies in Germany before merging with Rhône-Poulenc in 1999 to form Aventis, which was subsequently taken over by...

October 5, 2021
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01Oct

Number of pension age Germans projected to increase 22 pct by 2035: Destatis

The number of people of retirement age in Germany will rise by 22 percent by 2035, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said on Thursday. The number of people aged 67 or over in the country will go up to 20 million, a 22 percent increase from 2020, the first medium-term population projection conducted by Destatis showed. The head of the Federal Employment Agency, Detlef Scheele, was quoted in the media as saying in August that Germany needed 400,000 new workers per...

October 1, 2021
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September 2021
22Sep

German parties vague on pension plans as they court older voters

The churned-up garden of the clubhouse for pensioners is preoccupying Peter Klotsche. “It’s the raccoons,” he says. “They come at night and toss up the earth looking for worms and we really don’t know how best to stop it.” The clubhouse, Stille Strasse, in northern Berlin, is abuzz with members wanting to put questions to local politicians before Sunday’s elections. The raccoons are a central talking point, as well as affordable housing and, not least, the future of the club...

September 22, 2021
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14Sep

German chancellor candidates clash over future of pension system

Chancellor candidates have argued over the future of the German pension system, offering opposite views to the public in the second televised debate which took place yesterday, as the general election on 26 September approaches. Olaf Scholz, chancellor candidate for the Social Democratic Party (SPD), now leading in the polls, said his party would “guarantee that the retirement age will not increase and that the level of pension remains stable,” also with an eye to the younger generation. Read also Germany....

September 14, 2021
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