Why is Austria’s Pension System So Much Better Than Germany’s?

The pension systems in both Germany and Austria have undergone substantial reforms, though only one of the countries appears to have had success. Average earners in Austria will receive gross pensions equivalent to 78.1% of their average earnings, whereas in Germany they will receive just 37.5%. The authors argue that Germany has been left with a system that has abandoned the goal of protecting people's standard of living.     

Urban Structure and Environmental Externalities

The objective of this paper is to analyze policy design for air pollution management in the spatial context of urban development. We base our analysis on the paper of Ogawa and Fujita (Reg Sci Urban Econ 12:161–196, 1982), which offers a proper theoretical framework of non-monocentric urban land use using static microeconomic theory where the city structure is endogenous. First, we show that when households internalize industrial pollution in their residential location choice, spatialization within the city is reinforced. This impacts directly the emissions of greenhouse gases from commuting. Then, we analyze policy instruments in order to achieve optimal land use pattern when the policy maker has to manage both industrial and commuting related polluting emissions, that interact through the land market.