Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Over the next four decades, increasing old-age dependency ratios exert an enormous upward pressure on welfare spending in most developed countries. As this is mainly due to existing unfunded public pension schemes, many countries have embarked on far-reaching reforms in this area, strengthening actuarial fairness, modifying indexation rules, adding elements of prefunding and, last but not least, attempting to extend the period of economic activity. Efforts to contain costs may also be relevant with regard to public expenditure on health and long-term care but, thus far, no country has started to really deal with these issues. Still, some countries have made substantial progress in securing the long-term sustainability of their welfare systems. What remains to be considered is re-constructing the system of intergenerational transactions as a potential way of removing disincentives to raise children and invest in their human capital in the long run. Terms of use: Documents inJEL-Code: H50, H68, J11.

This paper studies a two-region model in which unemployment, education decisions and interregional migration are endogenous. The poorer region exhibits both lower wages and higher unemployment rates, and migrants to the richer region are disproportionally skilled. The brain drain from the poor to the rich region is accompanied by stronger incentives to acquire skills even for immobile workers. Regional shocks tend to affect both regions in a symmetric fashion, and skilled-biased technological change reduces wages of the unskilled. Both education and migration decisions are distorted by a uniform unemployment compensation, which justifies a corrective subsidization.JEL Code: H23, I20, J61, J64, R10.

A pay-as-you-go pension scheme is associated with positive externalities of having children and providing them with human capital. In a framework with heterogeneity in productivity, and stochastic and endogenous investment in fertility and education, we discuss internalization policies associated with child benefits in the pension formula. The second-best scheme displays both a benefit contingent on the contributions of children and a purely fertility-related component.

We consider a small open economy in which the level of public education funding is determined by popular vote. We show that growth can be enhanced by the introduction of pay-as-you-go pensions even if the growth rate of aggregate wages falls short of the interest rate. The reason is that the PAYG system allows future retirees to partially internalize positive externalities of public education due to the positive effect of higher future labor productivity on their pension benefits. The majority support for education funding will be especially strong when the PAYG benefit formula is flat, i.e. progressively redistributive. This means that if a flat benefit PAYG pension system is in place then the economy will achieve the highest growth rate relative to the alternative pension system designs. We argue furthermore that while such PAYG pension system may be opposed by the majority of working individuals due to inferior returns to their pension contributions relative to a funded scheme, it is likely to be politically sustained by the coalition of retirees and lower income workers.JEL Code: D90, H23, H55, I28.