Die Zukunft der Pflegeversicherung in Deutschland: Umlage und Kapitaldeckung

Due to the dramatic ageing of the population, the German welfare state expects enormous challenges in the decades until 2060: either the contribution rates have to be increased by a full 20 percentage points, or the benefits must be cut by one-third – relative to their present growth path. Moreover, even in the otherwise copious German welfare state, the system of publicly financed long-term care benefits is characterized by a considerable coverage gap. In this paper, we analyze past and current reforms of the German financing system for LTC expenditures, and we argue that the coverage gap should be reduced by supplementing the welfare state with an element of mandatory funding. The financial crisis should not induce policy makers to default on this necessary financing reform.     

Radicalness of blockchain: an assessment based on its impact on the payments industry

Blockchain is receiving considerable attention among practitioners and academics. However, a detailed analysis investigating how the impact of blockchain is going to unfold is still missing. Our article sets out to assess the radicalness of blockchain at an early stage of its development and substantiates the analysis with evidence from the payments industry. We start by distilling five key aspects of radical innovation from extant literature. Our analysis of blockchain then focuses on the payments industry, which represents a major business field of banking and the cradle of this technology. The results of a Delphi study provide 17 statements about the current development of blockchain. The statements deliver insights into the impact of blockchain on the payments industry and reveal the radicalness of the technology. Based on these insights, we investigate how blockchain affects the five key aspects of radical innovation and develop contributions from an innovation management’s perspective.     

Das Mindestlohngesetz — Hoffnungen und Befürchtungen

The German government plans to introduce a minimum wage from 2015. This must be understood as a response to the decline in collective bargaining coverage and the marked increase in employment in the low-wage sector. The authors discuss how many workers are affected by this new regulation and whether the minimum wage is too high in relation to the average wage of workers (Kaitz index). They assume that the introduction of a minimum wage in Germany can have a number of effects. It is not possible to forecast all the reactions and behaviour of market participants to handle higher wages and goods prices. Some authors warn that these measures are significant labour market interventions that could have adverse employment effects. They recommend allowing more exemptions from the minimum wage law than intended by the government, especially for young employees and student apprentices. Other authors hope that minimum wages would help to strengthen collective bargaining and stabilise wages. Some authors emphasise that there should be a careful evaluation of the economic effects by scientists.     

Modelling the Eurozone as an Extraordinary Exchange Rate Union

The Trans-European Automated Real-Time Gross settlement Express Transfer system (TARGET) imbalances within the Eurozone can be interpreted as a sign of a missing balance of payments adjustment mechanism for the member countries. As the Eurozone lacks a fiscal union, in theory it is more of an exchange rate union or a system of fixed exchange rates than a monetary union. This paper will show why the TARGET is a crucial indicator for the Eurozone not being a monetary union but instead an exchange rate union, and why countries holding TARGET liabilities against the European System of Central Banks can be compared to a reserve currency country, like the US under the Bretton-Woods System.     

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Ohne Zusammenfassung     

A model of trade in money,goods and factors

The ‘Oil Crisis’ provides the challenge to analyze effects of a resource shortage in a minimal monetary model of a vertically trading world economy. The one-asset monetary approach to balance of payments theory is employed to demonstrate that in a model with one final good and two inputs the elasticity of substitution between the domestic factor of production and an imported raw material plays the key role in determining the reaction of the balance of payments (= balance of trade).