Our health, our income and our social networks at older ages are the consequence of what has happened to us over the course of our lives. The situation at age 50+ reflects our own decisions as well as many environmental factors, especially interventions by the welfare state. This book explores the richness of 28,000 life histories in thirteen European countries, collected as part of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Combining these data with a comprehensive account of European welfare state interventions provides a unique opportunity to answer the important public policy questions of our time - how the welfare state affects people's incomes, housing, families, retirement, volunteering and health. The overarching theme of the welfare state creates a book of genuinely interdisciplinary analyses, a valuable resource for economists, gerontologists, historians, political scientists, public health analysts, and sociologists alike.

Europeans are living longer, and fewer now remain in the labour force as they grow older. Many European countries have responded to the ensuing financial pressure by reforming their public pension systems and health care programmes. There is considerable uncertainty as to the effects of these reforms - as they typically do not alter the unfunded nature of public welfare arrangements and this uncertainty is itself costly. Not only does it undermine the credibility of public welfare programmes, but it may also distort labour supply behaviour, decisions regarding savings and capital accumulation. More generally there is uncertainty about the overall impact of ageing on welfare and society and the multiple domains in which its effects may develop. Pensions: More Information, Less Ideology builds on the existing evidence - mostly in the field of public pensions - and highlights the advantages that would be obtained by: harmonising methodologies used in the various countries to report pension outlays and forecast future pension liabilities or more generally public spending; defining common standards as to the frequency of expenditure forecasts and the length of the forecast horizons for welfare expenditures; developing European longitudinal survey of persons pre- and post retirement age, providing timely information on a wide array of decisions by individuals and household related to the ageing process and the ongoing trends.

Europeans are living longer, and fewer now remain in the labour force as they grow older. Many European countries have responded to the ensuing financial pressure by reforming their public pension systems and health care programmes. There is considerable uncertainty as to the effects of these reforms - as they typically do not alter the unfunded nature of public welfare arrangements and this uncertainty is itself costly. Not only does it undermine the credibility of public welfare programmes, but it may also distort labour supply behaviour, decisions regarding savings and capital accumulation. More generally there is uncertainty about the overall impact of ageing on welfare and society and the multiple domains in which its effects may develop. Pensions: More Information, Less Ideology builds on the existing evidence - mostly in the field of public pensions - and highlights the advantages that would be obtained by: harmonising methodologies used in the various countries to report pension outlays and forecast future pension liabilities or more generally public spending; defining common standards as to the frequency of expenditure forecasts and the length of the forecast horizons for welfare expenditures; developing European longitudinal survey of persons pre- and post retirement age, providing timely information on a wide array of decisions by individuals and household related to the ageing process and the ongoing trends.

This book is a treatise on empirical microeconomics: it describes the econometric theory of qualitative choice models and the empirical practice of modeling consumer demand for a heterogeneous commodity, housing. Accordingly, the book has two parts. The first part gives a self-contained survey of discrete choice models with emphasis on nested and related multinomial logit models. The second part concentrates on three sUbstantive questions about housing demand and how they can be answered using discrete choice models. Why combine these two distinct parts in one book? It is the interaction between theory and application in empirical microeconomics on which we focus in this book. Hence, emphasis in the methodological part is on practicability, and emphasis in the applied part is on the usage of the proper econometric specifications. Econometrics means measuring economic phenomena. Because nature (ironically, in the case of economics, this is most often the government) rarely provides us with well-defined economic experiments, measurement of economic phenomena usually requires an elaborate statistical apparatus that is able to separate concurrent and confounding phenomena. Discrete choice models have proved to be a very convenient apparatus to study the complex issues in housing demand. We present models, techniques, and statistical problems of discrete choice in the first and methodological part of the book, written in conventional textbook style.

SHARE is an international survey designed to answer the societal challenges that face us due to rapid population ageing. How do we Europeans age? How will we do economically, socially and healthwise? How are these domains interrelated? The authors of this multidisciplinary book have taken a further big step towards answering these questions based on the recent SHARE data in order to support policies for an inclusive society.

SHARE is an international survey designed to answer the societal challenges that face us due to rapid population ageing. How do Europeans age? Under which circumstances do older people and their families live, how healthy and active are they, and how did the crisis affect them? The authors of this multidisciplinary book have taken a first step toward answering these questions based on the recent SHARE data including a new social networks module.

Our health, our income and our social networks at older ages are the consequence of what has happened to us over the course of our lives. The situation at age 50+ reflects our own decisions as well as many environmental factors, especially interventions by the welfare state. This book explores the richness of 28,000 life histories in thirteen European countries, collected as part of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Combining these data with a comprehensive account of European welfare state interventions provides a unique opportunity to answer the important public policy questions of our time how the welfare state affects people 's incomes, housing, families, retirement, volunteering and health. The overarching theme of the welfare state creates a book of genuinely interdisciplinary analyses, a valuable resource for economists, gerontologists, historians, political scientists, public health analysts, and sociologists alike.

Health in later life is shaped by behavior and policies over the life course and reflects the differences between the societies in which we are ageing. This multidisciplinary book answers questions from all life course phases and its interconnections from a European perspective based on the most recent SHARE data, such as: How is our health related to personality traits and influenced by our childhood conditions and careers? Which role does our social network play? Which impacts of the different health care and societal regimes can we trace at older ages? Which are the differences and similarities across European countries?

Der Band stellt Ergebnisse der ersten Befragungswelle des Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) vor, in deren Rahmen mehr als 30.000 Personen im Alter 50plus aus 11 Landern befragt wurden. In acht Kapiteln werden verschiedene oekonomische, soziale und gesundheitliche Aspekte des Alterns in Deutschland und Europa beleuchtet. Darin spiegelt sich die disziplinare und thematische Vielfalt sowie das Forschungspotential des SHARE wider, das durch die Moeglichkeit von Langsschnittauswertungen zukunftig noch potenziert wird.

Die "Fallstudien zur VWL" stammen aus der jungeren europaischen Wirtschaftsgeschichte und behandeln aktuelle wirtschaftspolitische Themen. Die "Fallstudien zur VWL" sollen das Erlernen von okonomischen Theorien lebendiger gestalten, den Studierenden die Anwendbarkeit okonomischer Theorien vor Augen fuhren, die empirische Ausbildung in der Volkswirtschaftslehre unterstutzen. Die "Fallstudien zur VWL" decken die zentralen Bereiche der Mikro- und Makrookonomik insbesondere im Grundstudium ab. Sie lassen sich sowohl in der Vorlesung als auch im dazugehorigen Ubungen oder Tutorien einsetzen. Zu jeder Fallstudie gehort eine gesonderte Kurzfassung sowie eine "Theorie-Box," in der die wichtigsten theoretischen Konzepte repetiert werden.
Verzeichnis: Diese "Fallstudien zur VWL" behandeln aktuelle wirtschaftspolitische Themen aus der Mikro- und Makrookonomik. Sie gestalten das Erlernen okonomischer Theorie lebendiger und fuhrt ihre empirische Anwendbarkeit deutlich vor Augen. Zu jeder Fallstudie gehort eine gesonderte Kurzfassung sowie eine "Theorie-Box," in der die wichtigsten theoretischen Konzepte repetiert werden."

Springers Handbuch der VWL stellt in insgesamt 20 Beitragen die wichtigsten Gebiete der Volkswirtschaftslehre vor. Die Beitrage enthalten umfassendes, prufungs- und praxisrelevantes Wissen fur Studenten, Praktiker und Wissenschaftler. Es ist ihr Ziel, dem Leser volkswirtschaftliche Fragen, Methoden und Ergebnisse und die Moglichkeiten und Grenzen okonomischer Analyse zu erlautern und zugleich einen Eindruck davon nahezubringen, warum Volkswirtschaftslehre als Fach interessant ist. Band 2 behandelt die Wirtschafts- und Finanzpolitik, die Geldpolitik, die Sozialpolitik sowie die Wettbewerbspolitik und die internationalen Wirtschaftsbeziehungen."

Springers Handbuch der VWL stellt in insgesamt 20 Beitragen die wichtigsten Gebiete der Volkswirtschaftslehre vor. Die Beitrage enthalten umfassendes, prufungs- und praxisrelevantes Wissen fur Studenten, Praktiker und Wissenschaftler. Es ist ihr Ziel, dem Leser volkswirtschaftliche Fragen, Methoden und Ergebnisse und die Moglichkeiten und Grenzen okonomischer Analyse zu erlautern und zugleich einen Eindruck davon nahezubringen, warum Volkswirtschaftslehre als Fach interessant ist. "Band 1" behandelt die mikro- und makrookonomische Theorie, die neuesten Entwicklungen der Vertragstheorie, die Okonometrie, die Industrie-, Arbeitsmarkt- und Umweltokonomik und die Analyse der Finanzintermediare."

This ninth phase of the International Social Security project, which studies the experiences of twelve developed countries, examines the effects of public pension reform on employment at older ages. In the past two decades, men's labor force participation at older ages has increased, reversing a long-term pattern of decline; participation rates for older women have increased dramatically as well. While better health, more education, and changes in labor-supply behavior of married couples may have affected this trend, these factors alone cannot explain the magnitude of the employment increase or its large variation across countries. The studies in this volume explore how financial incentives to work at older ages have evolved as a result of public pension reforms since 1980 and how these changes have affected retirement behavior. Utilizing a common template to analyze the developments across countries, the findings suggest that social security reforms have strengthened the financial returns to working at older ages and that these enhanced financial incentives have contributed to the rise in late-life employment.