July 2020

21Jul

Germany. Siemens to co-operate with Raisin on pensions

Siemens is cooperating with German fintech Raisin on employee pensions. There has long been a political desire in Germany to provide German residents with an accurate overview of their retirement financing, in order to identify the deficiency in people’s pension in a timely fashion. The pension specialist fairr, part of Berlin-based Raisin, developed a digital “retirement cockpit” along these lines, enabling users to easily track their retirement funds and plan accordingly. Now German manufacturing giant Siemens’ pensions company, Siemens...

July 21, 2020
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June 2020
19Jun

People in Germany are continuing to retire later and later

The average age at which people in Germany enter retirement has risen again over the past year, from 64,1 years in 2018 to 64,3 years in 2019. The age for women was particularly affected, mainly due to the Mother’s Pension II. Pension age for women rises sharply According to the German Pension Insurance Federation (Deutsche Rentenversicherung), the average age at which people start to draw their pensions has risen over the course of the last year. In 2018, the...

June 19, 2020
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April 2020

15Apr

German pensions lifeboat preps for insolvencies burden amid reform

The Pensions-Sicherungs-Verein VVaG (PSVaG), the mutual insurance association for German occupational pension schemes, expects a high number of insolvencies, despite the efforts of the government to mitigate the consequences of the COVID-19 crisis on the economy, board members Marko Brambach and Hans Melchiors have told IPE. “This will also lead to a higher burden for PSV as the legal institution of insolvency protection for company pension schemes,” they said. PSV is the statutory insolvency insurer for occupational pensions in...

April 15, 2020
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March 2020

25Mar

German federation proposes standard product for private pensions

The Federation of German Consumer Organisations – vzbv – and the state of Hesse have proposed a standard product, or Extra Rente, for private pensions to reform the system. The proposal aims to fix some of the problems brought by the privately funded pension system – Riester-Rente – since its introduction almost 20 years ago, precisely at the time when the government coalition weighs up possible changes. Dorothea Mohn, head of the financial market team at Vzbv, told IPE...

March 25, 2020
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07Mar

Employee Representation and the Risk of Corporate Pension Plans

By Nicola Heusel We analyze the effect of direct labour representation in supervisory boards on the risk of corporate pension plans.We exploit employee representation requirements mandated by German labour law and find that firms with parity employee representation reduce pension plan risk both in terms of funding as well as in terms of investment risk. Source: SSRN

March 7, 2020
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January 2020

17Jan

Germany’s other migration wave: the pensioner exodus

As retirement neared a decade ago, German butcher Waldemar Hackstaetter took stock of his finances and concluded he and wife Hildegard couldn't afford to remain in their home country. So they moved to rural Bulgaria, where they knew their combined income of 1,200 euros (£1,026) would buy a lot more. Read Also Greek Authorities to Raise Pensions after Years of Cutbacks "The month stretched further than our pension did (in Germany) and we didn't want to become a burden to...

January 17, 2020
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10Jan

Demographic Obstacles to European Growth

By: Thomas F. Cooley, Espen Henriksen, Charlie Nusbaum Since the early 1990’s the growth rates of the four largest European economies—France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom—have slowed. This persistent slowdown suggests a low-frequency structural change is at work. A combination of longer individual life expectancies and declining fertility have led to gradually ageing populations. Demographic change affects economic growth directly through households savings and labor supply decisions and also growth indirectly through the pension systems and the need to...

January 10, 2020
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08Jan

Germany needs 500,000 new immigrants every year

Germany is grappling with a ticking demographic time bomb. The Local spoke with FDP politician Christian Dürr who says immigration is the key to the country's future. As a society, we are living longer – and that's a good thing. But there is a lot of debate over how to stop Germany's welfare system buckling under the pressure of an ageing population. The Local spoke with Christian Dürr, deputy chairman of the pro-business Free Democrats' (FDP) parliamentary group, who recently wrote a guest...

January 8, 2020
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November 2019

29Nov

Digitization and Automation: Firm Investment and Labor Outcomes

By Michał Zator AI, automation and other digital technologies are thought to be transforming the economy, but the empirical evidence on their diffusion and impact is scarce. This paper uses new firm-level administrative data from Germany to analyze causes and consequences of firms' investment in the new technology - digitization and automation. Main results characterize relationship of technology and labor: (1) investment in technology is typically increased by labor scarcity; (2) new technologies typically reduce employment. Both results hide...

November 29, 2019
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27Nov

Germany Upper House Considers Bill to Introduce Tax Allowance for Occupational Pensions

The German upper house of Parliament (Bundesrat) Nov. 21 accepted for consideration a bill to introduce a tax allowance for the promotion of occupational pensions. Read also Puerto Rico Retirement Plans Will See Tax Provisions Reinstated The bill includes measures to: 1) apply a maximum allowance of 159 euros (US$175) of monthly pension payments and one-off capital disbursements; Read also Australia. Super tax breaks outweigh pension payments 2) allow beneficiaries whose pension began before 2020 or whose capital payment was less...

November 27, 2019
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