Staatlich geforderte Altersvorsorge als Losung der Rentenproblematik?
Authors: Raffelhüschen Bernd , Eekhoff Johann , Jankowski Markus , Voigtländer Michael , Rürup Bert 
Published: May 2016

In this paper Bernd Raffelhüschen gives some insights into the political decision making process which changed the latest German pension reform from a fundamental step towards sustainability into a reform to be reformed. Nevertheless, he explains that the pension reform still bears a fundamental change, since it reduced transfers and at the same time opened for tax-preferred private and occupational pension plans. Hence, his paper investigates how these measures are developing presently and will develop in the future. Finally, some educated guesstimates are derived concerning those further reform steps to be undertaken in order to ensure the sustainability of a reduced pay-as-you-go scheme in future Germany.

In their contribution, Johann Eekhoff, Markus Jankowski and Michael Voigtländer discuss the pros and cons of the Riester pension scheme. This so called “Riesterrente” involves a taxation scheme which can be regarded as a first step towards a consumption based taxation and can be justified in order to maintain intertemporal neutrality. The additional financial support for families and low-income earners, however, is neither based on efficiency grounds nor on a reasonable way of redistribution. The financial advantages are only granted if the capital investment is made in approved types of financial services. These restraints on capital investment will distort the functioning of the capital market which might lead to reduced economic growth and unemployment. Therefore, the authors conclude that the favouring of certain types of private saving should be abolished for the benefits of introducing consumption based taxation.

Bert Rürup argues that central issues of last year’s pension legislation were a limitation of the growth of expenditures and as a result also a limitation of the expansion of the contribution rate as well as a redistribution in favour of younger generations as a precondition for intergenerational justice. The simultaneous reduction of the pay-as-you-go financed first pillar of old-age security while strengthening the funded pillars of old-age security helped to reach those targets.

In his paper he argues that at the same time it was politically decided to melt down - in relative terms - the extent of the first pillar while simultaneously preserve the function of the old-age security system as an instrument to secure the standard of living after retirement. That also meant not to cut back the statutory pension insurance to a flat rate system in the long run. It should together with benefits from private systems guarantee - on the average - to keep up the income position reached in the period of professional activity also after retirement. This specific target makes state subsidization of private old-age security plans inevitable. The only alternative would be to turn the mandatory system into a compulsory one which would be the “cheaper” solution. The author states that compulsory saving for old-age security purposes versus targeted subsidization has distributive disadvantages and would hamper basic rules of market economy. And it would in Germany be impossible to be introduced due to political reasons.

If for normativ reasons (“lean state”) the state organized old-age security system should be reduced e.g. like in Great Britain to the level of a system that provides protection against poverty, consequently state subsidization of private saving for old age purposes must be rejected. The first question to be answered is: Should state old-age security policy be directed towards maintaining the standard of living reached in working life or should it create only something like basic security? If that question is being answered in favour of the first, then a discussion on the nature and extent of state subsidization of private saving for old age purposes makes sense.