INDIVIDUAL, INSTITUTIONAL AND SOCIAL TIME - TRUST IN PENSION ENTITLEMENTS AND THE DEBATE ABOUT A FULLY FUNDED VS A PAY-AS-YOU-GO SCHEME IN GERMANY

The debate about whether to fund pensions fully or to finance them on a pay-as-you-go basis started with Bismarckian social legislation and has lastet up to today. This article reconstructs this debate and show s that dominant perceptions about how the highest degree of security f or pensions can be guaranted has changed fundamentally over time. This is due to a change in underlying conceptions of social order and soci al time. How institutional incentive structures are perceived and how institutional stability can best be maintained depends largely on the ''social sphere'' of an institution.