SummaryThe correct adjustment of pension benefits when postponing retirement is calculated by three „income-oriented“ approaches: the incentive-neutral approach, the budget-neutral approach and as an innovation the return-neutral approach. It turns out, that the three approaches differ just in their underlying discount rate but not in their method of calculation. In addition it can be shown, that the incentive-neutral approach leads to incentive neutrality when the implicit taxation of contributions is equal to the implicit taxation of the early retirement pension. The correct adjustment factors were also calculated for those cases, where the relevant alternative for early retirement is unemployment or not to continue work.As an alternative to the income-oriented approaches the utility-based approach is presented. In this case the results strongly depend on the underlying utility function and the parametric values. Overall, the statutory adjustment factor of 3,6 % per year tends to be too low applying the income-oriented approaches. Using the utility-based approach, the calculated adjustment rates can be seen as too high or too low, depending on the assumptions on the utility function and the parameter constellation.

No abstract

The paper provides an empirical analysis of the macroeconomic factors that enhance revenue gap in South Africa using the multivariate cointegration techniques for the period 1965 to 2012. The results from the cointegration analysis indicate that the revenue gap in South Africa is negatively associated with the level of imports while positively related to external debt and underground economy. The former finding is consistent with the notion that imports are subjected to more taxation than domestic activities because of certain features of international trade that tend to make tax evasion difficult. On the other hand, the positive relationship between external debt and tax gap shows that the South African government relies upon external debt to finance its budget deficit resulting from missing revenues. Furthermore, the observed negative effect of the post-apartheid dummy confirms that the tax policy reforms that South Africa introduced following the liberation in 1994 have led to a reduction in missing revenues. The results from the Granger causality test also show that there is a unidirectional causality running from imports and underground economy to revenue gap, while revenue gap on the other hand is found to Granger-cause national income and external debt in South Africa.

No abstract

Zusammenfassung Mit der