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This paper studies the effect of income (wealth) inequality on interpersonal trust. We propose a theoretical framework that links trust, trustworthiness and inequality. The key feature is that agents do not necessarily observe the entire income distribution but base their assessment on reference groups (i.e. they might hold a biased view of reality). In this framework the negative impact of inequality on interpersonal trust is related to the individual-specific perception of inequality. This has important implications for the empirical analyses since researchers typically do not observe perceptions but only objective measures of inequality (e.g. the Gini coefficient). We show that the use of the latter is appropriate only under restrictive assumptions and in general will result in an underestimation of the true effect. An unbiased estimate of the effect of inequality on trust can be obtained with a measure of individual-specific perceptions of inequality. Survey data support our framework. Perceptions of higher inequality exert a strong negative effect on trust. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at (10.1007/s10888-021-09490-x).

This paper studies how the rates of deduction for early retirement have to be determined in pay-as-you-go (PAYG) systems in order to keep their budget stable. The derivation of these deductions requires the use of a multiperiod intertemporal budget constraint that involves assumptions about the retirement behavior of past, present, and future cohorts. In general, it is not possible to calculate budget-neutral deductions from the budget constraint of a single individual who retires before the target retirement age—an approach that dominates the related literature. Only for specific cases one can use this second approach but then one has to adjust the discount rate to the assumption about collective retirement. If there is only one deviating individual, then the right choice is the market interest rate while for a stationary retirement distribution it is the internal rate of return of the PAYG system. In this case, the necessary deductions are lower than under the standard approach. This is also true for retirement ages that fluctuate randomly around a stationary distribution. Various long-run developments (e.g., increases in life expectancy or permanent changes in the average retirement age) might cause challenges for the sustainability of the pension system. These developments, however, can only be dealt with by adequate adjustments to the basic pension formulas and not by the use of deduction rates.

In this paper, I study how pay-as-you-go pension systems of the notional defined contribution type can be designed such that they remain financially stable in the presence of increasing life expectancy. For this to happen three crucial parameters must be set in an appropriate way: the notional interest rate, the adjustment rate and the annuity conversion factor. I show that there exist two main approaches to implement a stable system. The first uses period-specific annuitization and indexation rates that correct for labor force increases, which are only due to rises in the retirement age which are necessary to ‘neutralize’ the increase in life expectancy. The second approach uses cohort-specific annuitization and indexation rates that are larger than in a stationary situation. This is due to the fact that a continuously increasing life expectancy leads to higher internal rates of return that can be passed on via the indexation.

Subjective views of the extent of inequality and preferences for redistribution depend on how people perceive the true income (wealth) distribution. We present a novel formal framework in which individuals look at reference groups when guessing the extent of inequality and derive its implications for four dimensions of inequality perceptions. First, we show that the presence of reference groups that put more weight on the own income class leads low (high) income individuals to overestimate (underestimate) their own position. Second, the framework implies that subjective estimates of the average income increases with the own income position. Third, it predicts that people in different income deciles will assess the "distributional shape" of society (e.g. pyramid or diamond) differently. Fourth, the subjective extent of inequality is lower for high-income individuals. While the previous literature has treated these aspects of inequality separately, our model demonstrates that they are connected and follow from a unified framework of reference group formation. This allows us to study these and to reconcile conflicting findings from the literature. We confront these predictions with survey data from 40 countries and find strong support for the model.

In this paper I study the impact of increasing longevity on pay-as-you-go pension systems. First, I show that increasing longevity increases the internal rate of return. The size of the effect differs for different policy regimes. It is higher for the case where the retirement age is increased to keep the system in balance than for the case where the necessary adjustment is achieved by reducing pension benefits. Second, I study optimally chosen retirement decisions and I show that the socially optimal policy involves a shorter working life than the private optimum. The social optimum can be implemented by the use of a PAYG system that combines an actuarial and a flat pension.

We study the evolution of people's trust in banks during the global financial crisis, and the factors that determine its level. Austrian survey data show that trust in banks declined sizeably during the financial crisis, but the lowest observed trust level (60%) is still higher than that of many other institutions. We establish that a trust decline is related to agents’ subjective view of the economic situation and the direct experience of bank failures. Deposit insurance stabilizes banking trust. Both the lack of bank collapses and the extension of deposit insurance coverage had a cushioning effect on trust in banks.

This article studies the role of staggered efficiency wages in a small-scale DSGE model. The simple structure of the model allows for closed-form solutions. The set-up differs from the related literature in that I assume wages are sticky and unions are responsible for wage-setting. The model has the potential to explain why wages depend strongly on past wage levels as it is suggested by empirical data. The presence of efficiency wages increases persistence, however, only for certain parameter constellations. In particular, the elasticity of effort with respect to the wage has to be large. In an extension of the model I show that this is more likely to be the case if wages are the outcome of a bargaining process between unions and firms.

In this paper I study the relation between real wage rigidity (RWR) and nominal price and wage rigidity. I show that in a standard DSGE model RWR is mainly affected by the interaction of the two nominal rigidities and not by other structural parameters. The degree of RWR is, however, considerably influenced by the modelling assumption about the structure of wage contracts (Calvo vs. Taylor) and about other institutional characteristics of wage-setting (clustering of contracts, heterogeneous contract length, indexation). I use survey evidence on price- and wage-setting for 15 European countries to calculate the degrees of RWR implied by the theoretical model. The average levels of RWR are broadly in line with empirical estimates based on macroeconomic data. In order to be able to also match the observed cross-country variation in RWR it is, however, essential to move beyond the country-specific durations of price and wages and to take more institutional details into account. JEL Classification: E31, E32, E24, J51

This article presents an extension of the Taylor model with staggered wages in which wage setting is also influenced by reference norms. We show that reference norms can considerably increase the persistence of inflation but that the size of this effect depends on the exact definition (e.g., external vs. internal, symmetric vs. asymmetric norms). Using data on collectively bargained wages in Austria from 1980 to 2006 we show that wage setting is strongly influenced by reference norms, that external norms seem to matter more than internal norms, and that there is a clear indication for the existence of wage leadership (asymmetric norms).

In this paper we analyze automatic adjustment factors that can be used to keep the budget of a PAYG pension system balanced when cohort sizes fluctuate. The adjustment factors are defined in a way that is similar to their real-world counterparts and they differ in the relative weight they put on changes in the contribution rate and in the pension level. We show how the internal rate of return of the PAYG system depends on the fluctuations in cohort size and on the choice of the adjustment regime. We find that fluctuations in the cohort size have the smallest impact on the internal rate of return if the relative weight of the adjustment parameters directly corresponds to the length of the retirement period relative to the length of the working period. For reasonable numerical values, this weight is close to the actual choice in the German system.

The paper studies the optimal portfolio mix between funded and unfunded pension systems when people care about relative consumption. In pay-as-you-go systems with fixed contribution rates, pensions are tied to wages. This lowers the uncertainty of individuals' future relative position thereby increasing the attractiveness of unfunded systems. The paper shows analytically that the optimal share of funding decreases with the importance of relative standing. A calibrated version of the model suggests that the concern for relative standing has also a quantitatively important impact on the optimal share of funding. For reasonable assumptions it is typically around 20%.

By analysing almost 1000 money demand estimations this paper attempts to summarize the diverse findings of the literature on this topic. Using both descriptive statistics and meta-regressions, several stylized facts are derived about the two most prominent determinants of money demand income and interest rate elasticities. In particular, it is shown we show that the size and signs of average elasticities are systematically related to the choice of included variables (e.g. M1 or M3, short-run or long-run interest rates), the country grouping (e.g. USA versus Germany) and the empirical specification (e.g. the inclusion of one or two interest rates).

In this paper, we use meta-analytic methods to investigate possible sources for the large variation in empirical findings about the income elasticity of money demand. Our results suggest that the broadness of the monetary aggregate, the inclusion of wealth and the consideration of financial innovation exert a significant influence on estimated income elasticities. Furthermore, we find substantial cross-country differences, in particular between the US and other countries. These differences can, to some extent, be explained by the macrofeconomic environment and the dissemination of payment cards.

The new Austrian pension system based on individual accounts is a clear improvement over the former system. A serious shortcoming of the new system, however, is that it does not react to demographic changes, in particular to increases in life expectancy. I contrast the Austrian and the Swedish pension account systems to demonstrate how and why the latter is able to react to demographic changes. I also show how the Austrian system could be adapted to include such an automatic adjustment mechanism. In particular, this would require a continuous modification of the “key formula” 80/65/45 (80% replacement rate after 45 contribution years at a retirement age of 65). In a next step I argue why an increase in the average retirement age seems to be the most appropriate and viable reaction to the increase in life expectancy and why alternative adjustment policies have their limits. Finally, I discuss some commonly expressed objections to this adjustment strategy. I also sketch how a system of individual accounts could be amended in order to take some of these objections into account.

In this paper I study how PAYG pension systems of the notional defined contribution type can be designed such that they remain financially stable in the presence of increasing life expectancy. For this to happen two crucial parameters must be set in an appropriate way. First, the remaining life expectancy has to be based on a crosssection measure and, second, the notional interest rate has to include a correction for labor force increases that are only due to rises in the retirement age which are necessary to "neutralize" the increase in life expectancy. It is shown that the selfstabilization is effective for various patterns of retirement behavior and also – under certain assumptions – if life expectancy reaches an upper limit.

This study examines the importance of wage staggering and wage leadership in the Austrian system of collective bargaining. Collective wage agreements in Austria generally remain valid for one year and are staggered; the highest concentrations of new agreements can be found in the months of January, May and November each year. The relevant literature describes Austrian wage bargaining as a system of wage leadership, with the agreement reached by the metal workers, which usually goes into effect in early November of each year, setting a precedent for wage agreements reached by other sectors in the ensuing months. Through an analysis of detailed individual series from the Index of Agreed Minimum Wages, it is actually possible to provide empirical evidence for the existence of wage leadership. The results also show that the wage-leading metal sector is substantially more sensitive to macroeconomic forecasts than the other sectors are. This phenomenon and the rapid transmission to the sectors that follow are probably key reasons why empirical evidence of high real wage flexibility has been found in Austria.

In this paper we present an extension of the Taylor model with staggered wages in which wage-setting is also influenced by reference norms (i.e. by benchmark wages). We show that reference norms can considerably increase the persistence of inflation and the extent of real wage rigidity but that these effects depend on the definition of reference norms (e.g. how backward-looking they are) and on whether the importance of norms differs between sectors. Using data on collectively bargained wages in Austria from 1980 to 2006 we show that wage-setting is strongly influenced by reference norms, that the wages of other sectors seem to matter more than own past wages and that there is a clear indication for the existence of wage leader-ship (i.e. asymmetries in reference norms). JEL Classification: E31, E32, E24, J51

In this paper I derive the optimal portfolio mix between a funded and an unfunded pension system when people care about their consumption relative to a reference group. Pay-as-you-go systems with fixed contribution rates have the property that pension benefits are tied to labor income. This lowers the uncertainty of individuals’future relative position and thus increases the attractiveness of unfunded systems. The paper shows analytically that in an OLG model the optimal share of funding decreases with the strength of individuals’ concern for relative standing. A calibrated version of the model that uses data for various countries and time periods suggests that the sensitivity of the optimal share of funding to the concern of relative standing is also quantitatively important. For reasonable assumptions about reference standards it is typically around 20%.

This article discusses the most recent pension reforms in Austria, which were mainly triggered by the need to alleviate the budgetary pressure stemming from the age structure of the Austrian population. Using synthetic indicators, derived from the government’s budget constraint, the paper assesses fiscal sustainability before and after the major pension reforms. Austria’s fiscal sustainability was clearly improved by the reforms. The two main factors behind this improvement are a projected increase in the average effective retirement age and a projected reduction in the generosity of the mandatory state pension system. Based on available data, the paper assesses the current and prospective level of Austrian public pension benefits and puts them into an international perspective.

In this paper, the author deals with the question how to make PAYG pension systems financially resistant to fluctuating fertility rates. The author presents two pension schemes that lead to a permanently balanced budget but differ in the mixture of changes in the contribution rates and replacement rates they require in order to achieve this result. After analyzing the variations in the central parameters (both over time and across generations) for each of the schemes he discusses which consequences they have with regard to intergenerational burden sharing and fairness. In particular, the author is interested in how a generation is affected by changes in the size of proceeding and succeeding cohorts. He introduces a proportionality measure(defined as the ratio of relative inputs to relative outputs) that can be used as an indicator to study this impact. The author shows that the schemes have quite different implications concerning how past and future cohorts influence the proportionality measure. Finally he discusses how suitable the formulas are to be implemented in either traditional PAYG or in notional defined contribution (NDC) systems.

This study discusses important elements of Austria's recently harmonized statutory pension system. In particular, the author investigates in how far the new system responds to the twofold demographic challenge of declining birth rates and increasing life expectancy and what this means in terms of fiscal sustainability and intergenerational redistribution. Austria's defined benefit system is found to have more in common with Germany's system of earnings points than with Sweden's notional account system — with the exception that the sustainability factor, the adjustment mechanism triggered by demographic changes, has been designed differently in Germany and in Austria. A critical analysis of the Austrian provisions identifies the following problems: First, the application of the sustainability factor is activated only by deviations from projections and not to demographic movements as such. Second, adjustments are not to be automatic. Third, the requirement of an “even adjustment7” is not spelled out in detail. Fourth, it is doubtful whether evenness is a desired feature in the first place since generation-specific reproductive behavior is neglected in this scenario. Overall, the basic structure of Austria's new model gets a favorable rating, as it increases the degree of intergenerational fairness, supports individual, intersectoral and international flexibility and corrects some design flaws of the old pension regime. Conversely, weaknesses are identified with regard to the transitional arrangements, the contribution side and the sustainability factor.

By analyzing almost 1000 money demand estimations this paper attempts to summarize the disperse findings of this literature. Using both descriptive statistics and meta-regressions we derive several stylized facts about the two most prominent determinants of money demand–income and interest rate elasticities. In particular, we show that the size and signs of average elasticities are systematically related to the choice of included variables (e.g., M1 or M3, short-run or long-run interest rates), the country grouping (e.g., US vs. Germany) and the empirical specification (e.g., the inclusion of one or two interest rates).

A growing economic literature stresses the importance of relative comparisons, e.g., for savings and consumption or happiness. In this literature it is usually assumed that reference standards against which people compare themselves are exogenously given. In contrast, findings from social psychology suggest that people play an active role in determining their reference standards. We introduce a social comparison model where people choose their reference standards to serve motives of self-improvement and self-enhancement. The model predicts that reference standards increase in individuals’ abilities and that people thus tend to compare themselves to similar others. The results of a questionnaire study confirm the prediction of the model.

This study examines the role of revaluation and adjustment factors in pension systems. The first part sheds light on the determination of revaluation and adjustment factors according to the General Social Security Act (Allgemeines Sozialversicherungsgesetz — ASVG) and how these factors have evolved over time. The analysis shows that since the mid-1980s the revaluation factors have been set more or less in line with the inflation rate; in other words, contributions have not, in fact, been revalued in real terms. The author then demonstrates that such a system eventually conflicts with principles of intragenerational and intergenerational fairness. In such case, the mere extension of the assessment period may entail substantial reductions in pension benefits. When we consider the Austrian situation, extending the assessment period from 15 to 40 years may cause the average pension to drop by 11% to 36% (depending on the underlying assumptions). Capping maximum losses at 10% certainly is a solution for persons aged 35+ at the cutoff date, but anyone younger than that would have to bear the brunt of such a pension reform measure. In the light of the problematic fairness aspects of the current revaluation regime, relating the necessary reform of the Austrian pension system and the concomitant paring of benefits too closely to the effects of this revaluation regime does not seem to be the right approach. In a new (harmonized) system, the revaluation factors should at any rate be linked to wage growth. The last section of this paper focuses on issues which are crucial in wage-based revaluation regimes and which are mainly related to the emergence of demographic shifts. Some of the questions tackled are: Should revaluation be based on the growth rate of average earnings or of the total wage bill? Is the 80-45-65 formula frequently cited in the pension reform debate in Austria consistent in itself? Should automatic adjustment factors (sustainability factors) be built into the pension system, and if so, which ones? Does it make any difference then whether we are dealing with a traditional pay-as-you-go pension model or a notional account system?

In this paper we perform a meta-analysis of empirical money demand studies involving almost 500 individual money demand estimations. We analyze whether the wide variety of results can be explained by characteristics of the studies, different macroeconomic environments or the imprecision of individual estimates. We find that estimates for the income elasticity of money are systematically related to various study characteristics (e.g., broadness of the monetary aggregate, inclusion of financial innovation and wealth, etc). Also, the macroeconomic environment (inflation, nominal and real uncertainties) seems to play a role. Nevertheless, a substantial part of the variability remains unexplained. Our findings thus raise some doubts about the robustness and reliability of money demand estimations.

The paper studies the determinants of unemployment in a two-country model, where real wages are the outcome of the strategic interaction between various institutional players (firms, unions, central banks). We show that: (i) the results derived in the recent literature on this topic are not generally robust against the introduction of openness; (ii) the shape of the Calmfors- Driffill curve not only depends on a country’s own centralization of wage-bargaining (CWB) but rather on home and foreign characteristics; (iii) the model challenges the established belief that a shift to a monetary union (MU) will (negatively) affect unemployment in all member countries by fundamentally changing the nature of strategic interactions. Under certain assumptions our open-economy model suggests that the formation of a MU has no effect whatsoever on structural unemployment.

Over the recent years one could repeatedly hear the claim that a rising concern for relative standing (in terms of consumption) was partly responsible for the decline in household savings and in growth that could be observed in some developed countries (particularly in the US) and that the rise in income inequality had further aggravated this process.In this paper we want to analyze under which conditions (concerning the importance of social comparisons for peoples' behavior and their choice of reference groups) this claim is valid. We show that an increase in a societies' concern for relative standing aggravates a negative impact of inequality on growth if two conditions are fulfilled: individuals have a higher concern for their present than for their future relative standing and individuals have a tendency to find their reference groups among people that are wealthier then they are themselves. Empirical data suggest that the negative impact of inequality on growth is stronger in highly developed economies. This is compatible with the explanation that is presented in this paper if individuals living in highly developed countries are more likely to have a high concern for relative standing. We will argue (using research on the cultural consequences of economic development) that this is a reasonable assumption to make.

As a side event to the conference “Game Theory, Experience, Rationality”, the Institute for System Simulation of Socio-economic Processes (SYSIS) organized a computer tournament. It was based on the well-known game-theoretical model “Tragedy of the Commons”. This model — in many respects similar to the even more famous “Prisoners’ Dilemma” — illustrates the instability of “good” equilibria in games, where each player can gain by deviating from the cooperative strategy.

In this paper we show that globalization might cause an inefficient reduction of working time regulation. The argument rest on the assumption that people care about their relative standing and that national policymakers fail to completely internalize the consumption externality of the increasingly international reference standards.