IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/itaxpf/v22y2015i4p534-548.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Challenges for European welfare states

Author

Listed:
  • Axel Börsch-Supan

Abstract

In the absence of social security reform, current pension entitlements of an aging population exceed future fiscal capacity. However, structural labor market reforms facilitate the transition to sustainable schemes in which a sizeable part of the current generosity of European welfare states can be maintained. In fact, many European states have already taken important steps in this direction. In the end insufficient productive capacities to support the welfare state pose smaller challenges to reform than do time inconsistencies built into the political process of redesigning pension plans. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Axel Börsch-Supan, 2015. "Challenges for European welfare states," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 22(4), pages 534-548, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:itaxpf:v:22:y:2015:i:4:p:534-548
    DOI: 10.1007/s10797-015-9372-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10797-015-9372-1
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10797-015-9372-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jonathan Gruber & David A. Wise, 2010. "Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: The Relationship to Youth Employment," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number grub08-1, March.
    2. Vicki Freedman & Brenda Spillman & Patti Andreski & Jennifer Cornman & Eileen Crimmins & Ellen Kramarow & James Lubitz & Linda Martin & Sharon Merkin & Robert Schoeni & Teresa Seeman & Timothy Waidman, 2013. "Trends in Late-Life Activity Limitations in the United States: An Update From Five National Surveys," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(2), pages 661-671, April.
    3. Mazzonna, Fabrizio & Peracchi, Franco, 2012. "Ageing, cognitive abilities and retirement," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 691-710.
    4. Bonsang, Eric & Adam, Stéphane & Perelman, Sergio, 2012. "Does retirement affect cognitive functioning?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 490-501.
    5. Susann Rohwedder & Robert J. Willis, 2010. "Mental Retirement," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(1), pages 119-138, Winter.
    6. Vincenzo Galasso & Paola Profeta, 2004. "Lessons for an ageing society: the political sustainability of social security systems [‘Assessing dynamic efficiency: theory and evidence’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 19(38), pages 64-115.
    7. Jonathan Gruber & David A. Wise, 2004. "Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: Micro-Estimation," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number grub04-1, March.
    8. Vicki Freedman & Eileen Crimmins & Robert Schoeni & Brenda Spillman & Hakan Aykan & Ellen Kramarow & Kenneth Land & James Lubitz & Kenneth Manton & Linda Martin & Diane Shinberg & Timothy Waidmann, 2004. "Resolving inconsistencies in trends in old-age disability: Report from a technical working group," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 41(3), pages 417-441, August.
    9. Börsch-Supan, Axel & Weiss, Matthias, 2016. "Productivity and age: Evidence from work teams at the assembly line," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 7(C), pages 30-42.
    10. Vincenzo Galasso, 2008. "The Political Future of Social Security in Aging Societies," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026257246x, December.
    11. Sinn, Hans-Werner & Uebelmesser, Silke, 2003. "Pensions and the path to gerontocracy in Germany," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 153-158, March.
    12. Coe, N.B. & Lindeboom, M., 2008. "Does Retirement Kill You? Evidence from Early Retirement Windows," Other publications TiSEM 749af81e-10f6-4c32-b9ae-0, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    13. Axel B?rsch-Supan & Klaus H?rtl & Alexander Ludwig, 2014. "Aging in Europe: Reforms, International Diversification, and Behavioral Reactions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 224-229, May.
    14. Stefanie Behncke, 2012. "Does retirement trigger ill health?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(3), pages 282-300, March.
    15. Norma B. Coe & Hans‐Martin von Gaudecker & Maarten Lindeboom & Jürgen Maurer, 2012. "The Effect Of Retirement On Cognitive Functioning," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(8), pages 913-927, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Börsch-Supan, Axel, 2015. "Challenges for European Welfare States," MEA discussion paper series 201508, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    2. Börsch-Supan, Axel, 2013. "Myths, scientific evidence and economic policy in an aging world," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 1, pages 3-15.
    3. Axel Börsch-Supan, 2016. "Rational Pension Policies," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 152(II), pages 103-124, June.
    4. Johannes Hagen, 2018. "The effects of increasing the normal retirement age on health care utilization and mortality," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(1), pages 193-234, January.
    5. Mattia Filomena & Matteo Picchio, 2023. "Retirement and health outcomes in a meta‐analytical framework," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 1120-1155, September.
    6. Leimer, Birgit & van Ewijk, Reyn, 2022. "No “honeymoon phase”: whose health benefits from retirement and when," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    7. Motegi, H. & Nishimura, Y. & Oikawa, M., 2016. "Retirement and Cognitive Decline: Evidence from Global Aging Data," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 16/11, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    8. Yoshinori Nishimura & Masato Oikawa & Hiroyuki Motegi, 2018. "What Explains The Difference In The Effect Of Retirement On Health? Evidence From Global Aging Data," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 792-847, July.
    9. Pedron, Sara & Maier, Werner & Peters, Annette & Linkohr, Birgit & Meisinger, Christine & Rathmann, Wolfgang & Eibich, Peter & Schwettmann, Lars, 2020. "The effect of retirement on biomedical and behavioral risk factors for cardiovascular and metabolic disease," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    10. Börsch-Supan, Axel, 2015. "Rational pension policies," MEA discussion paper series 201509, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    11. Hiroyuki Motegi & Yoshinori Nishimura & Kazuyuki Terada, 2016. "Does Retirement Change Lifestyle Habits?," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 67(2), pages 169-191, June.
    12. Sahlgren, Gabriel H., 2012. "Work ‘til You Drop: Short- and Longer-Term Health Effects of Retirement in Europe," Working Paper Series 928, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    13. Eve Caroli & Claudio Lucifora & Daria Vigani, 2016. "Is there a Retirement-Health Care utilization puzzle? Evidence from SHARE data in Europe," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza def049, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    14. Axel Börsch-Supan, 2016. "Rational Pension Policies," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 152(2), pages 103-124, April.
    15. Pierre-Jean Messe & François-Charles Wolff, 2019. "Healthier when retiring earlier? Evidence from France," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(47), pages 5122-5143, October.
    16. Nikolov Plamen & Adelman Alan, 2018. "Short-Run Health Consequences of Retirement and Pension Benefits: Evidence from China," Forum for Health Economics & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 21(2), pages 1-27, December.
    17. Hagen, Johannes, 2016. "What are the Health effects of postponing retirement? An instrumental variable approach," Working Paper Series 2016:11, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    18. Kuusi, T. & Martikainen, P. & Valkonen, T., 2020. "The influence of old-age retirement on health: Causal evidence from the Finnish register data," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 17(C).
    19. Birgit Leimer, 2017. "No “Honeymoon Phase” Whose health benefits from retirement and when," Working Papers 1718, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
    20. Kolodziej, Ingo W.K. & García-Gómez, Pilar, 2017. "The causal effects of retirement on mental health: Looking beyond the mean effects," Ruhr Economic Papers 668, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    European welfare states; Pension reform; population aging; H55; I00; J10; J26;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
    • I00 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General - - - General
    • J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - General
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:itaxpf:v:22:y:2015:i:4:p:534-548. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.