Pensions and the path to gerontocracy in Germany

Hans-Werner Sinn and Silke Uebelmesser

Munich Reprints in Economics from University of Munich, Department of Economics

Abstract: An impending demographic crisis in Germany calls for fundamental reforms of the pension system. In a democracy, however, reforms require the support of the majority of the electorate. To determine whether the majority is in favour of reforms of the pension system, we calculate for each year the \"indifference age\" as the age of the cohort that is not affected by the reform and the \"median age\" as the age of the politically decisive cohort. Until 2016, a reform can be democratically enforced. After 2016, Germany will be a gerontocracy.

Date: 2003
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Published in European Journal of Political Economy 1 19(2003): pp. 153-158

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